Sugar Rush Continuing Adventures: Wild Worlds
by TheDisneyFan365
Summary: After finding out that they are immune to a mysterious parasite that affects half of Sugar Rush, Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle set out on a journey to save their friends. Sequel to Sugar Rush Continuing Adventures: Doodle Creamy.
1. A New Discovery

**Chapter 1: A New Discovery**

 _"Location: Litwak's Arcade, The World Of Disney, October 14th 2110"_

It was a peaceful day in the arcade. There was nothing to do because it was closed for the day, so everyone was taking the time to rest.

There were no races going on or missions having to be done in Sugar Rush, so the racers were spread throughout the game, doing whatever they wanted. Crumbelina was sitting in her room in the house she had in Sugar Rush, reading a volume of short stories. She had thought about going back to the castle in Richmond, but Vanellope had her stay for some reason, so she decided to go through her house's library and look for something to read.

After some time of reading, Crumbelina heard the sound of a portal outside. She set the book on a nearby table and stepped outside just in time to catch Taffyta on her way back in from somewhere, as there had been an emergency and she had been the one to go and stop it.

"Interesting mission?" Crumbelina asked, noticing a series of long claw marks on the sleeves of Taffyta's jacket.

The blonde haired girl was irritated.

"Vanellope sent Candi and me to Royal Woods to take care of something. Some sort of creatures were mobilized around the Baseball Stadium." Taffyta replied.

"And they snuck up on you?" Crumbelina asked.

"In my defense, I've never seen those things before. Their small, fast, and really have nasty bites. One of them wounded me." Taffyta replied.

She held up one of her hands to show a hole punched clean through her glove.

"Where's Candi?" Crumbelina asked.

"I'm not sure. She came back before I did. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go see Vanellope." Taffyta replied.

Crumbelina nodded and walked away, deciding to go see what else was happening in the game.

* * *

The recently built Racer's Lounge seemed the place to be that particular morning, Crumbelina noted. Citrusella sat on a stool at the counter, filing her nails and pretending not to listen to Candlehead and Gloyd as they played cards at a table.

"You are totally cheating! There's no way you could be beating me so bad!" Candlehead shouted, throwing her cards down suddenly.

"Go Fish is my game." Gloyd said, casually setting down another set of pairs.

"He's a trickster and a pro at games, Candlehead. Of course he's going to be good at this." Citrusella said.

"Hey, don't take his side!" Candlehead said, recovering her cards nonetheless.

"I'm not. I'm just inputting some commentary." Citrusella said.

"Well, uh... don't!" Candlehead said.

"Anyway, do you have any fours, Candlehead?" Gloyd asked.

Candlehead threw down a few cards, crossing her arms in a pout.

"Aw, no WAY! Why did I agree to play with you?" Candlehead asked angrily.

"Your an idiot." Citrusella replied.

"Anyway, do any of you know where Candi went off to?" Crumbelina asked.

"She was in here a minute ago getting a snack, but she said she had something to do this afternoon. She's probably with Rancis. They got the PS4 working again yesterday." Candlehead replied.

"I'll find her, if you like. I need something to occupy my time anyway." Crumbelina said.

* * *

Standing outside the Racer's Lounge as though ready to enter was Minty.

"Good afternoon, Crumbelina." Minty greeted, nodding respectfully.

"Hey, Minty. Anything of note going on?" Crumbelina asked.

"Not particularly. I was looking for Adorabeezle. I wanted to hear about the results of her last experiment. Rumor has it that she's figured out info on those things Taffyta found." Minty replied.

Crumbelina raised an eyebrow.

"Really? I didn't know she was looking into anything like that." Crumbelina said.

"Well, she is. Let's go see what she has." Minty said.

* * *

The two found Adorabeezle in her laboratory in her and Nougetsia's house.

"Good day, you two." Adorabeezle greeted.

"Hey, Beezle. We came to see about your latest research, Adorabeezle." Minty said.

"Oh, yes! I just finished drawing up a chart for such an explanation. I've got a torrent of exposition all ready for you." Adorabeezle said.

She rushed over to a nearby desk and lifted up a series of complicated notes and diagrams detailing her research. The girl cleared her throat and held up an image of a pathetic shriveled little creature that looked like a ghostly worm.

"This, girls, is the species in it's most basic form." Adorabeezle said.

Crumbelina's eyes widened considerably.

"Those are the things that almost defeated Taffyta? That little worm?" Crumbelina asked.

"Ah, but it has much more bite then bark. In any case, this species is unique in that they seem to affect a certain part of the body. From my research, it's possible to ascertain that they are programmed to seek out and eliminate the matrix. I call this species the Probus." Adorabeezle replied.

The matrix was around the place a normal person would have their heart. The matrix was the heart of a game character. If that was to collapse, even in a character's own game, they would die. Just getting it corrupted could be fatal if left long enough.

"That's an interesting name, if they target the heart." Minty said.

"Yes. Their rather interesting though, don't you think? I can only imagine why such a creature out there." Adorabeezle said.

Minty nudged Crumbelina in the shoulder.

"You said that Taffyta ran into the Probus today?" Minty asked.

"Oh, yes. Taffyta said she and Candi ran into a large group of them in Royal Woods today. She was wounded in the hand by one of them." Crumbelina replied.

Adorabeezle suddenly became excited.

"Was she? Do you suppose she's already healed the wound? I'd like to have a look at it to add the notes to my research." Adorabeezle asked.

Crumbelina shook her head.

"I don't have the slightest idea. We ought to check, though, and ask Candi. You know how Taffyta get's in battle. Candi will have gotten a better look at them." Crumbelina replied.

To save time walking all the way to Taffyta and Taffyel's house, Minty opened a portal there with her portal key.

"Taffyta, are you in?" Minty asked.

There was no response.

"She had gone to see Vanellope a while ago. Maybe she isn't back yet." Crumbelina replied.

 _"Come in!"_ Taffyta called out through the portal.

* * *

The trio entered Taffyta and Taffyel's room through the portal to find that Taffyta had been busy doing a little redecorating in the twenty minutes since Crumbelina had last seen her. A fresh coat of cheerful lavender paint had been haphazardly flung all over previously pink walls, and colorful sun catchers in the shape of stars and moons hung from the ceiling on pink string. Throw pillows were tossed around piles of fluffy blankets, and Strawberry-flavored incense wafted across the room in tendrils of smoke. Taffyta herself was kneeling in front of a mirror, whistling "Zip-Ah-Dee-Doo-Dah" and curling her hair.

"Hello, fellows! How does this evening see you?" Taffyta asked in an odd voice, waving with her other hand.

Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle took a moment to survey the scene.

"Taffyta, we were... just coming to ask about those new creatures you found." Crumbelina replied.

Taffyta giggled, tossing her hand.

"Oh, those silly old things? No matter no matter! They were sooooo mean! Like oh my GOD. I didn't think Kandi and I were gonna get out! They were all shape-shifty and stuff!" Taffyta replied.

"'Like oh my God'?" Crumbelina asked.

"'Kandi'?" Minty asked.

"Shape-shifting? Really?" Adorabeezle asked.

She pulled out a notebook to write that down.

"Yeah, they could like... turn into little teethy-guys an' stuff." Taffyta replied.

She began to hum again, fluffing up her hair and standing up to twirl around in circles in front of the mirror.

"Somebody's gorgeous!" Taffyta shouted.

Near the doorway, Adorabeezle was still furiously taking notes as Crumbelina and Minty eyed each other.

"Something very strange is going on. She wasn't like this earlier, Crumbs, was she?" Minty asked.

Crumbelina looked puzzled.

"No. I think perhaps Sylvia's been dumping her dead herbs into the arcade water supply again." Crumbelina replied.

"Maybe she's not feeling well from his encounter with the Probus earlier." Minty said.

"Taffyta, might I have a look at your wound from today?" Adorabeezle asked.

Taffyta waltzed over and pulling off her glove.

"Oh yeah! I was gonna heal it up earlier, but it was like, really itching, so I decided to wait until later to do it. Look at the rash! Isn't it like totally weird?" Taffyta asked.

Taffyta's hand had a small pink heart-shaped rash centered by the fang marks Crumbelina had noticed earlier. The wound hadn't quite closed yet, very unusual for a game character in their own game, but even more unusual was how warm to the touch the platinum blonde haired girl's skin felt. Adorabeezle glanced at her notes concernedly, and then up at Taffyta.

"Taffyta, you said it's been itchy? And this was from one of those new creatures?" Adorabeezle asked.

Taffyta pursed her lips and nodded.

"Mmhmm, Kandi and I got attacked earlier while we were on patrol. I got bitten in the hands and, um... I think Kandi got nicked in the ankle. Mean little buggers! Looked like little worms, but then they got these big teeth." Taffyta replied.

Adorabeezle closed her notebook suddenly.

"Ah. Thank you, Taffyta. That's all I need." Adorabeezle said. She then turned to Crumbelina and Minty, and ordered "Crumbelina, Minty, follow me back out.".

Taffyta suddenly hopped up and down.

"Hey, you guys should totally stick around! I'm gonna make some tea and cookies, and we can sit around in a circle with all my new pillows and talk about our feelings! I'm telling you, there's this beautiful little flutter in the place where my heart would be lately. I think I'm in LOOOOVE!" Taffyta cried.

"The tea sounds lovely, Taffyta, but we're a bit busy today." Crumbelina said as she ducked through the portal.

"Er... yes. Maybe some other time." Crumbelina added, following the others out.

* * *

"That was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen." Minty said simply.

Adorabeezle's face was a mix between triumph and horror.

"I can't believe it. I thought the data was just a fluke, but it looks like I was right." Adorabeezle said.

"Did you leave something out of the explanation, Adorabeezle? Perhaps, something involving permanent side-effects?" Crumbelina asked.

"It sounded impossible. A few of my reports found the presence of some kind of some sort of organism in the saliva of the Probus. The Probus are so weak, it's difficult to imagine anyone being overtaken by them, resulting in the loss of one's matrix." Adorabeezle replied.

"So they evolved a parasite to pass onto their victims instead?" Minty asked.

"Yes. Data suggests that this parasite slowly inhibits the function of the matrix, rendering the victim into a state I will colloquially refer to as 'ukefication'. This state wipes the personality and demeanor of a victim completely clean, replacing it with one of complete and utter submission. This causes the victim to become weak, fluffy, emotional, and completely incapable of standing up for themselves, wanting only to be in contact with others to further spread the epidemic." Adorabeezle replied.

"So Taffyta has the parasite, and she's lost her matrix. That would explain the giggling and the sissy redecorating." Crumbelina said.

"Poor Taffyta." Minty said, looking horrified at the thought.

The group began a brisk walk towards castle.

"We must alert Vanellope before it spreads." Minty said.

"Wait. Just... how contagious is it?" Crumbelina asked suddenly.

Adorabeezle thought about it for a moment.

"In a sealed wound, I wouldn't think it too bad... but Taffyta's wound has been open all day. Has she been around any of the others?" Adorabeezle asked.

"She went to see Vanellope earlier. And she was with Candi when the attack occurred. Candi was in the Racer's Lounge earlier and she's with Rancis now." Crumbelina replied with concern.

"More immediately, perhaps, we were just in contact with Taffyta." Minty said with dawning terror.

There was a short pause.

"We'll split up. Adorabeezle, you go find Candi and check the rest of the game to see if anyone else has been affected. Minty, you head to the Lounge. I'll go speak with Vanellope. Meet me there when you've finished and we'll discuss what we're to do." Crumbelina ordered.


	2. A Change In Personality

**Chapter 2: A Change In Personality**

Finding both the castle in Richmond devoid of Candi and the castle in Sugar Rush devoid of Rancis, Adorabeezle decided to ask the other Sugar Rush team members if they had seen her. She first went to see Toxika in Activist's Quest and came to her villa, brushing a few vines and flowers out of her way as she entered the villa's conservatory's doorway.

"Sylvia, there's been an incident! There's... oh dear." Adorabeezle called out.

Toxika was in the process of caring for a giant pink orchid in the center of the room, lovingly stroking it and talking to it in a sweet tone.

"Yes, we are thirsty today, my little flower, aren't we? Yes, let Mommy give you some water." Toxika said.

She kissed it's petals and tipped a pink watering can around the flower's base, which sprouted up from cracks in the stone floor.

"We are such a healthy little flower, aren't we? Yes, precious, beautiful. Grow up big and beautiful for Mommy. Mmm, precious, your pollen is growing so fragrant. I just love the scent of your beautiful pollen..." Toxika started to say. She then noticed Adorabeezle and asked "Hello, Adorabeezle. Out to let a little light on your pale complexion?".

"Afternoon, Sylvia. And no." Adorabeezle greeted.

Toxika flipped her green hair out of her face and frowned.

"Is it really? Hmm. I've wasted half the day away planting seeds and watering. How the time flies." Toxika said.

"Have you been feeling... alright today?" Adorabeezle asked. The girl eyed the circumstances she had found Toxika in, but promptly remembered how she was, and said "Then again, I suppose this isn't really out of the ordinary for you.".

Toxika crossed her arms.

"Oh, how droll you are. To each her own. Some people like to give life to beauty, while others like to lock themselves in stuffy labs playing scientist and talking to test tubes." Toxika said.

"I would rather be in a stuffy lab then surrounded by such vibrant symbols of femininity. And in any case, straighten up. There's been an incident back in Sugar Rush." Adorabeezle sneered.

Toxika raised an eyebrow.

"Mmm, has there? What sort of incident?" Toxika asked.

"I need to know if you've looked up from your flowers long enough to see Taffyta or Candi today." Adorabeezle replied.

Toxika smiled.

"I see Taffyta and Candi every day." Toxika said.

"You know what I mean, Sylvia." Adorabeezle said.

"Only briefly." Toxika said.

"Where are they now?" Adorabeezle asked.

Toxika huffed.

"I don't know. As I said, I've been in here all day planting seeds and watering. These beauties don't grow this lovely on their own, you know." Toxika replied.

"Right." Adorabeezle said.

"Well, I at least heard some voices and an odd noise from Vanellope's castle earlier. That is, I think I did." Toxika said.

"I see. Well, do us all a favor and stay in here for the time being, while Crumbelina, Minty, and I look into this incident." Adorabeezle ordered.

Toxika nodded, before turning back around to water more plants.

"Very well. But do watch yourself on the way out. My man eaters haven't been fed yet." Toxika said.

* * *

The card game had been all but abandoned by the time Minty reached the Racer's Lounge. She was, unfortunately, too late to prevent the horror she walked in on. The earlier insult war between Candlehead, Gloyd, and Citrusella was nowhere to be seen. Citrusella, in fact, was nowhere to be seen, but it was difficult to miss Candlehead and Gloyd sprawled out on the floor in the throes of a loving embrace.

"I just... I just feel so... so... safe with you." Candlehead said.

"Yes... yes, I've... I've always wanted somebody to love." Gloyd said.

"I know... I know the feeling." Candlehead said.

"Touch me." Gloyd ordered.

"Yes." Candlehead whispered.

"Touch my face and tell me I exist." Gloyd ordered.

"You exist." Candlehead said.

"Where do I exist?" Gloyd asked.

"In my... HEART!" Candlehead replied.

"We don't have hearts." Minty said, looking on the verge of vomiting.

"Yes we do! I have a heart... and it belongs to GLOYD!" Candlehead screamed.

"And my heart belongs to CANDLEHEAD!" Gloyd cried triumphantly.

"This is disgusting. I'm going to put a stop to this right now." Minty said.

She stepped forward to deal with her comrades.

"She's going to separate us, Gloyd!" Candlehead wailed.

"I wouldn't bet on it!" Gloyd said.

The Pumpkin themed boy looked for a moment like he was going to stand up and do something about the infringement on Candlehead and his parasitic psycho "love", but instead hugged the green haired girl closer and cuddled her. Minty promptly fixed it, however, by grabbing Candlehead by the back of her jacket, yanking her away, and hanging her on a coat rack and out of commission while she dealt with the sobbing sensitive Gloyd.

"Don't take her away from me! I LOVE HER!" Gloyd wailed pathetically, clinging to Minty's sleeve and sobbing like a 6 year old girl.

"I LOVE YOU TOO, GLOYD! Tell me you'll never leave me!" Candlehead shrieked, reaching out her hand.

"I'll NEVER LEAVE YOU!" Gloyd yelled.

Mercifully, Minty knocked Gloyd unconscious and promptly stuffed him in an upright cabinet, before latching the door shut with a spatula.

"You can't do this, Minty! You can't separate true love!" Candlehead screeched, kicking and fighting to loose herself from the coat rack.

Minty shook her head.

"You don't know how stupid and disgusting what your saying is, Candlehead. And for the time being, I am appointing myself your Mercy Angel. I will do whatever it takes to keep you from humiliating yourself to the point of suicide once we figure out how to recover your matrix." Minty said.

"MEANIE!" Candlehead yelled.

She crossed her arms and sobbed. Minty tied a towel into a strip and tied Candlehead's hands with it to prevent her escaping and letting Gloyd's out.

"I won't bother asking if the two of you are feeling all right. Anyway, Candi was in here earlier, yes?" Minty asked.

"Yes, and she would RESPECT OUR LOVE!" Candlehead replied angrily.

"That means she must have the parasite too, then, to have spread it to the two of you. It didn't seem to take long at all." Minty said.

She turned her thoughts to herself, assessing how she felt no different as usual. Certainly not as though she was suffering the malfunction of her matrix. Did the parasite really kick in so suddenly, out of the blue?

"What happened to Citrusella?" Minty asked, shaking away the troubling thoughts.

"I don't know! I wasn't paying attention. I was too busy looking for someone to watch over me." Candlehead replied. She then sighed miserably and started to say "I... I was thinking...".

"Yes?" Minty asked.

"Please! P-Please, Minty... I beg of you... I... I just need somebody to prove I belong... show me they love me... please." Candlehead pleaded.

Minty patted Candlehead on the head.

"You are barking up the wrong tree entirely, Candlehead. You stay here and don't move. We shall fix you." Mint said.

Minty was interrupted by the door to the Lounge swinging open and a shadowy figure stumbling out of the doorway.

"Minty!" a voice shouted.

Swizzle was sporting black eyeliner and a set of Hot Topic spiked wristbands as he held out his arms and stepped towards the girl.

"Minty! I... I have a confession." Swizzle said.

"Oh no." Minty muttered.

"SHE'S MINE, YOU FREAK!" Candlehead squealed.

"No! NO! She promised she loved me!" Swizzle shouted.

The Unicorn Pops themed boy threw himself forward, missing Minty by a hair as she stepped backwards abruptly.

"Minty! I, well... what's the worst that I can say? Things are better if I stay..." Swizzle started to say.

"SO LONG AND GOODNIGHT!" Candlehead yelled.

"So long... and goodnight. Unless you can show me I exist, I'm going to..." Swizzle started to say. He drifted off overdramatically, staring at the wall in a fairly transcendent manner, and said "End it.".

"I don't think so, Swizzle. You aren't yourself." Minty said reasonably.

"Your bow is so... shiny... and... and colorful... and... I want to touch it." Swizzle said, beginning to drool a bit.

"Thank you, but I don't think so." Minty said, noting how Swizzle seemed unwilling to take his eyes off it and concentrate on the manner at hand.

Perhaps there was a second wave of parasites known as the Brainless.

"I've always... always needed somebody to show me the way." Swizzle said stupidly.

Candlehead's eyes watered.

"Me... me too!" Candlehead said.

Swizzle's eyes got big and watery as he eyed his friend hanging from the wall.

"Really? That's so... so..." Swizzle started to say.

"Beautiful." Candlehead said, drifting off with a moronic grin.

"I apologize for this, but I can't stand to hear anymore of your nonsense." Minty said.

The Apple Toffee themed girl took the opportunity while Swizzle was turned, and she stepped forward and mercilessly kicked the green haired boy away from her. Swizzle caught himself on the coat hook that Candlehead dangled from, ripping it out of the wall and freeing the green haired girl to untie her hands and make her own effort at winning Minty over.

"Well, that didn't work as planned." Minty said to no one in particular, a hint of alarm in her voice.

"DOMINATE MEEEE!" Candlehead and Swizzle shrieked together.

They leaped for her simultaneously, but Minty evaded by smacking their heads together to knock them both unconscious, before summoning a portal with her portal key to make a break for it in.

"This is really turning out to be one of those days." Minty muttered.

* * *

"Yes, Vanellope. I understand how it feels to be treated like a glitch. You were bullied and pushed around for those fifteen years you were a glitch, and me, the other racers, Turbo, and the other Sugar Rush characters tried our best to make sure you didn't race." Crumbelina said. She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ears, glared disapprovingly at Vanellope, and said "However, I don't think it is necessary, nor is it productive, for you to do this.".

"Come, Crumbelina. Bask in the darkness with me. Together, we can find it... the light." Vanellope said broodingly over the sparkling flames of at least forty-three votive candles laid all over her throne.

She laid in a sprawling heap on the ground, staring up at her friend with melancholy and tearful hazel eyes, and surrounded by books upon books of gothic haiku she had seemingly written within the last half hour. Crumbelina took a few steps back in case the black haired girl attempted to cling to her leg.

"I'm going to have to decline your gracious offer, Vanellope. And Torvald, you really shouldn't be encouraging her." Crumbelina said.

Torvald was similarly laid out next to Vanellope.

"I am so totally numb. Everything is so... bleak, y'know? I need something to make me feel... whoooooole." Torvald whispered with a faint stupid smile on her face, waving her hands in the air above her.

"I do too." Vanellope whispered, staring at the Butter themed girl with a plastered grin.

"If the two of you could kindly refrain from that before I get out of here, that would be very much appreciated." Crumbelina said.

"Your so cruel, Crumbelina. I... I don't think I get enough cruelty." Torvald whimpered.

"Well, seeing as both Vanellope and Taffyta are out of commission, I suppose that put's me in charge, doesn't it? Wait, what am I asking you for? You two are brainless vegetables." Crumbelina said.

"TALK DIRTY TO ME! TELL ME I'M A GLITCH!" Vanellope screamed desperately.

Crumbelina sighed with relief.

"I can't tell you how happy I am that none of us have to take orders from you anymore." Crumbelina said.

Just then, Minty appeared on the other side of the room from a portal, eyeing the candles, poetry, and the sad state of affairs in Vanellope's throne room.

"Crumbelina? Here too? Candlehead, Gloyd, and Swizzle have all been infected. I couldn't find Citrusella, and she wasn't in her and Jubileena's house." Minty said.

Adorabeezle arrived from her own portal, carrying a stack of notes that she had just been down to her lab to fetch.

"Candi and Rancis are gone too. Everyone else except them, Vanellope, and Taffyta are fine for now." Adorabeezle said.

"This is a sorry sickening state of affairs, ladies. This could very well be the greatest threat the game has ever suffered since the war against Anthony. If left unchecked, this parasite will destroy us from within and leave us nothing but angsty, moping, wrist-cutting loser boys and girls." Crumbelina said, disdain lacing her voice.

"What about us, though? We were exposed to it multiple times now. Are we and the others going to end up like them?" Minty asked.

Adorabeezle pulled out her stack of notes and shuffled through them.

"Yes, I have looked into that, actually. While I was in Rancis and Vanellope's room in the castle, I took a swabbing of the controller on Rancis's PS4 and made a culture of the parasite particles. I went down to my laboratory and analyzed it, and was able to pick up some new data from the computer." Adorabeezle replied.

"Out with it, then." Crumbelina said.

"It seems that the Probus originate from a series of worlds approximately here." Adorabeezle said.

Adorabeezle held up a world map and circled her finger around a huge blank area beyond any explored regions.

"I got into the Scorpio and did a little research on this area. It seems this is the area surrounding the legendary Fandom Heights." Adorabeezle announced.

"Fandom Heights? I thought that place was only a myth." Minty asked.

"No, it seems to be true. Somewhere, out there in the universe, apart from the known universes in the multiverse, there is an alternate dimension exactly like, and yet, extremely different from our own. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of doubles and multiples of people in this universe on the other side of Fandom Heights. The Probus seem to be congregating around Fandom Heights, as though they are trying to conquer it. They are attracted to the worlds on the other side of Fandom Heights." Adorabeezle replied.

"Worlds on the other side?" Crumbelina asked.

"Yes. There are countless of them, and multiple versions of the people in our own universe are invoked there every time a new one is created. However, it seems the Probus are aiming to destroy Fandom Heights by affecting the people within our universe." Adorabeezle replied.

"So basically, there's a lot of copies of our universe being invoked, and the Probus keep screwing them up by turning us into sobbing wussies?" Crumbelina asked.

"Precisely. In short, we three are immune to the Probus." Adorabeezle replied.

Minty raised an eyebrow.

"How do you figure?" Minty asked.

Adorabeezle lifted another sheet of printouts and passed a piece of paper to both Minty and Crumbelina.

"Statistics. This is data concerning how many times each of the three of us has been obviously invoked in one of the alternate worlds of Fandom Heights. It covers nearly ten thousand alternate worlds. I was invoked in a shoddy 0.0012 percent of them." Adorabeezle replied.

"0.0012 percent? Out of ten thousand? I was only invoked in 0.0003 percent of them!" Minty said.

Crumbelina looked extremely insulted at her paltry 0.0003 percent appearance rate.

"We hardly appear at all." Crumbelina said.

"Indeed. It is my hypothesis that the Probus don't know we exist, and therefore, we are immune to them. Under the circumstances, I am extremely grateful." Adorabeezle said.

Minty was inclined to agree.

"What do you suppose happened to Citrusella, Rancis, and Candi? And those in the team that haven't been affected?" Minty asked.

"I would imagine those that haven't been affected are also immune to the Probus. As for Candi, Rancis, and Citrusella, I don't have a clue where they could have run off to. It is my hope that Rancis, at least, was able to escape infection and ran off somewhere to save himself. Sylvia has not been infected either, but it's only a matter of time before the parasite robs her of whatever little shriveled bits of her matrix she has left." Adorabeezle replied.

Crumbelina huffed and pounded her fist in her other hand.

"Well, enough of this nonsense, then. Since Vanellope and Taffyta are out of sorts, and as a former queen, I am hereby taking over control of Sugar Rush. And as my first order of business, we're going to put things back to normal and restore the team to it's former glory. Is there a cure, Adorabeezle?" Crumbelina asked.

"I unfortunately do not have one readily available, Crumbelina. However, it is my guess that the matrixes of our comrades have been taken into Fandom Heights by the Probus. If we make the journey there ourselves, we should hopefully be able to restore them back to normal and perhaps put an end to this nonsense once and for all." Adorabeezle replied.

"Then there's no time to waste. Shall we be off?" Minty asked.

"Adorabeezle? ADORABEEZLE!" a voice shouted shrilly.

Toxika entered the room, before dropping to her knees and rolling around on the ground in terror. Her three friends eyed her with wonderment as she covered her ears and began rocking back and forth.

"PLEASE, Adorabeezle! I didn't mean it NO! DON'T HURT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Toxika yelled.

Adorabeezle looked quite insulted.

"What? I beg your pardon, why would I ever hurt anyone at all, unless if they were attacking me?" Adorabeezle asked.

Toxika clutched at the bottoms of Crumbelina and Minty's outfits.

"CRUMBELINA! MINTY! You won't let her use her horrifying inventions on me, will you? I'M TIRED OF BEING HARMED! PLEASE!" Toxika sobbed.

"I'm fairly certain you've never been tested on, Sylvia." Minty said calmly.

Crumbelina sighed, placing a weary hand on her forehead.

"I take it the parasite's gotten to her, too. Never mind. Just leave her here. We've got things to be doing." Crumbelina said.

Toxika whimpered, covering her face as best as she could with her arms.

"NOT ME! NOT ME!" Toxika cried.

"That's right, not you. Why don't you stay here and keep an eye on everyone? Vanellope and Torvald are in here, Candlehead, Gloyd, and Swizzle are in the Lounge, and Taffyta is in her room. Let's make sure they all stay nice and unconscious." Adorabeezle asked condescendingly, as though Toxika was a child.

"Why should I listen to you? I haaaate you!" Toxika asked miserably.

"If you do it, we'll buy you a nice sun bonnet while we're out." Adorabeezle replied.

Lip quivering, Toxika suddenly nodded, meeker then an anemic kitten.

"'Kay." Toxika said.

Crumbelina glanced at Adorabeezle and Minty.

"Come on, girls. We're off." Crumbelina said.


	3. The First World

**Chapter 3: The First World**

"Wait, how do we even plan on getting to Fandom Heights? We can use our portal keys to reach it, but that's a long way to travel, and through several world dimensions as well." Minty asked.

She, Crumbelina, and Adorabeezle were heading towards the castle garage.

"Good point. By the time we even reach the other side of Fandom Heights, we'll be exhausted. I don't fancy our chances against hoards of Probus if we're already weak from travel." Crumbelina said.

Adorabeezle shook her head, unfazed.

"Don't be so worried, girls. We can utilize my latest invention. A transporter ship." Adorabeezle said.

"Huh? You never told us you made one." Minty said.

"I've been working on one for some time. I never told any of you." Adorabeezle said.

"You know, we really should have taken photographs of them while we were there. That could have been lovely blackmail material for years." Crumbelina said.

Minty shook her head.

"No. I don't want to be the one to approach Vanellope about her special feelings for Rancis." Minty said.

"And I wouldn't want to be there to see Taffyta wake up with curlers in her hair." Adorabeezle added.

The trio entered the garage and approached an impressive blue-and-white ship that looked like something out of Hero's Duty called the S.R. Plight. Adorabeezle raised her hand, and the gangway lowered for the three of them to head inside.

"This will be perfect. We can fly this through the gateway of Fandom Heights, and then go to whatever worlds we can reach. We'll be sure to find our friends matrixes somewhere in there, right, Adorabeezle?" Crumbelina asked.

"Presumably. I'll see if I can dig up anything with the on-board computer. It's still unknown how the matrixes the Probus steal are actually utilized." Adorabeezle replied.

* * *

 _"Location: Fandom Heights, October 14th 2110"_

The gate to Fandom Heights was placed in the center of a tremendous asteroid belt out in the middle of nowhere, near any nearby entrances to other universes in the multiverse. It resembled a great plane floating in space, a white plane with blue bars protecting it from invading ships, and a tremendous Keyhole in the center of it. The S.R. Plight approached at a steady speed, and the onboard computers were finally able to pick up some more useful data regarding Fandom Heights as a whole. Adorabeezle was able to pick up a signal of a world beyond the gate.

"The computer is detecting the presence of Sugar Rushers in a world just beyond the barrier of Fandom Heights." Adorabeezle announced, sounding pleased.

"Sugar Rushers we know?" Minty asked.

Adorabeezle leaned back in her seat.

"No, I can't tell if it's any of ours." Adorabeezle replied.

The ship continued it's approach, finally coming within a short distance of the huge keyhole separating the dimensions from one another. Minty kept a close watch on her computer monitor.

"That's an impressive Keyhole on the gate to Fandom Heights. Is it locked?" Minty asked.

Adorabeezle shook her head.

"No, anybody can get into Fandom Heights. It's getting out with your brains and stomach contents intact that's difficult." Adorabeezle replied.

Crumbelina glanced into a computer monitor on her side

"What about this world on the other side? What is it picking up so far?" Crumbelina asked.

"Not much. The presence of at least one Sugar Rusher and many other worldly beings. I haven't yet scanned for our friends matrixes. But in any case, it seems that the world I'm picking up is a fairly large one, right on the other side of the Keyhole. We'll be forced to land there before we can go anywhere else." Adorabeezle replied.

"But that's alright. We'll need to look around for the matrixes anyway." Minty said optimistically.

After a few more minutes, Crumbelina stood up.

"We're close enough. Leave the ship here, Adorabeezle. We'll use our portal keys to teleport down and get this over with." Crumbelina ordered.

"You want to just let the ship drift around in zero gravity? Fantastic idea, Crumbs. I don't like the looks of these readings. This is no ordinary world we're landing on. It's coming back with all sorts of hostile negative energy and a huge concentration of Probus." Adorabeezle snapped.

"What other choice to we have? If you have to, invoke the EXON engines and let the ship drift wherever it likes. We're running on a time limit here." Crumbelina said.

Minty cleared her throat.

"I am going down to the world for initial scouting now. If you two wouldn't mind, please resolve your issues and join me. That would be really appreciated." Minty said.

"Oh, fine." Adorabeezle said.

She pressed an important-looking red button labeled "EXON", and the lights within the ship began to flash red and green.

"Prepare yourselves, girls, for one of the most dangerous missions that we of Sugar Rush have ever partaken in, especially for the sake of our brethren. For we are about to enter... FANDOM HEIGHTS!" Crumbelina exclaimed.

* * *

The EXON engines had been developed two decades earlier by the most brilliant of game characters in all of Litwak's Arcade... that is, Adorabeezle and Turbo after a night of heavy drinking in Tapper's. It was first intended it to be used as a weapon in battling certain enemies, such as those that would try to take over certain games. It became apparent after a few uses, though, that the EXON made things almost a little bit too easy. So, rather then be completely thrown out, it was instead put into storage and later installed into the S.R. Plight.

Despite Adorabeezle's complaints, once Crumbelina finished her speech, the EXON engines kicked into high gear, creating a vortex at the back of the ship that opened up a long path from the S.R. Plight through time and space itself, through the great keyhole of Fandom Heights, and all the way down to a massive planet within a few light years of the Keyhole itself.

The three then used the vortex and appeared in the middle of a lush green field of grass. Immediately after landing, it was very apparent that it wasn't the sort of world they were used to, even though they had visited the real world many times before. There had been some changes to the wardrobes of everyone in the group.

Instead of their usual clothing, they each wore somewhat more "earthly" garments that appropriately matched their personalities. Crumbelina had gained a small pair of sophisticated glasses and a fine twill dress, the sort often worn by librarians or college professors. Adorabeezle's hair had been pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore a white lab coat over a dress of her own. Minty was wearing the outfit of a biker gang leader, which consisted of a leather vest, ripped green jeans, and a pair of aviator sunglasses.

"Nice disguises, girls." Crumbelina said, examining a world guide book that had appeared in her hands.

"What is this place called, Crumbelina?" Minty asked, craning her neck to have a look at the guidebook.

"According to the guidebook and that large dramatic graphic in the center of the screen, this world is called..." Crumbelina started to reply.

 **LITWAK NICELAND RUSH HIGH SCHOOL ACADEMY GRAMMAR SCHOOL**

Minty motioned to a large building with impossibly fancy architecture a short distance away.

"That must be the aforementioned school." Minty said.

"You've got to be kidding me. For one thing, aside from the ridiculously corny name, you cannot have a 'high school academy grammar school'. 'High school' and 'academy' are silly together as it is, but grammar school is the same as 'elementary school', which is for children ages 5 to 12, not teenagers. And second of all, why would anybody want to live in a world that is nothing but high school all over again? And why would anybody possibly want to invoke it in Fandom Heights?" Adorabeezle asked angrily.

Minty shrugged.

"They say high school is the best four years of your life." Minty said.

"Who's 'they'? If those four years are to be the pinnacle of my life, I might as well go jump in front of a train." Adorabeezle asked angrily.

"Why's that?" Crumbelina asked.

"Lousy football players, sucking all the funding into their cesspool of aggressive adolescent sporting events for the weak of mind, stealing chemistry sets and copying tests off the smart kids, stupid teenage girls moaning and crying about all the drama in their lives. For example, 'Adorabeezle! Adorabeezle! Oh my god, Adorabeezle, you won't believe what Sasha said to me!'. And the food... let's not discuss the food." Adorabeezle replied.

Crumbelina flipped to the back page of the guidebook, which had conveniently transformed into a small operational scanning computer.

"Good point. But let's focus on the task at hand. The Sugar Rusher signal is getting stronger by the second." Crumbelina said.

"It must be one of ours. Perhaps Rancis, Candi, or Citrusella." Minty said, looking optimistic at the guess.

"Maybe. The signal's coming from somewhere in the building. Also, we're picking up a second weaker signal that the guidebook can't identify. It, too, is somewhere in the building." Crumbelina said.

She closed the book and started walking towards the school, with Minty and Adorabeezle following behind her.

"Brace yourselves, girls. I've heard rumors about worlds like this. This could be a very difficult task indeed." Crumbelina said.


	4. Teenage Wasteland

**Chapter 4: Teenage Wasteland**

A few minutes later, Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle stood in the foyer of the commons/cafeteria area.

"It's even worse than I thought. It's a 7th-12th grade school!" Minty said disdainfully.

"Middle schoolers. They think their so great because they are technically teenagers." Adorabeezle sneered with disgust.

"Stay with me, girls. The signal is getting stronger." Crumbelina said, noticeably disturbed by the insipid cesspool of teenage angst and pointless spectacle.

All around them, crowds of eerily familiar students were engaged in the daily grind of, surprisingly, not a lot of schoolwork. It was mostly internal dramatics, emo whining, fights, relationship troubles, complicated love triangles and polygons of all shapes and sizes, oblivious faculty, the unsettling religion of prom-worship, and who was sitting next to who at lunch when they said they'd sit next to some other person and how MEAN they were.

"HEY! What you punks doin' on our turf?" a terribly stereotypical voice asked.

Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle turned around to see a boy that was either doing his best to look like his clothes didn't fit him, or like he was making some kind of fashion point. Paperboy crossed his arms and furiously sized up the three girls, with younger versions of Mario and Sonic close behind. In an attempt to dress like street punks, they all looked like they had pulled their clothes out of a garbage bin, either that or gone dumpster diving behind the Goodwill and just put on whatever they happened to find, matching or not. There was a lot of camouflage or spaghetti stains, it was hard to tell.

"What're an adult and a bunch of kids like you doin' around here? We ain't gonna stand for you trespassin' in our hallowed halls!" Paperboy asked, while thumbing the side of his face.

"Who are you to be strutting around like you own this place, boy?" Adorabeezle asked angrily.

"What, you ain't heard of me? Name's Keith, but you can call me Paperboy. I'm head of the LNRHSAGS Disciplinary Committee, and we're the biggest baddest people on this campus!" Paperboy replied. He struck a dramatic pose and said "Ain't nobody messes with us! Not even a couplea little girls!".

"Who ain't-a supposed to be hangin' around the commons at lunch time, y'know!" Mario said, striking a fearsome pose behind Paperboy.

"Against the rules." Sonic said.

"Yeah, we've beat up more people and skipped more classes then any other chump around here! We ain't been to class in like, two months, ain't that right, guys?" Paperboy asked.

"Yeah, ditchin' every period y'know!" Mario replied.

"Imperfect attendance." Sonic added.

Adorabeezle lifted a finger.

"Question." Adorabeezle said.

"What, punk?" Paperboy asked.

"If you haven't been to class in months, why are you still here? Do you realize that most high schools have attendance policies regarding such things? They don't have to put up with you for so long if you are dead set on failing all your classes and simply roaming the hallways like a gang of hooligans." Adorabeezle replied in a quiet contemplative tone.

"And what I want to know is why you come here to hang out and then fail to actually attend your classes. You make the effort of waking up, brushing your hair, bathing, and apparently pulling clothes out of the rag pile and coming here... and then you fail to attend your classes. Your utter failure as productive human beings astounds me." Crumbelina added.

Minty was quick to agree with her friends.

"And even better, you come to school and appear to work as a sort of rule enforcement squad. Your logic is incomprehensibly stupid. Isn't there somewhere else you could go to waste your pathetic lives? A shopping mall? An amusement park? Anywhere even more remotely interesting then a high school?" Minty asked.

There was a long moment of silence as Paperboy, Mario, and Sonic took some time to really question why it was they were in this situation.

"Aw, forget it! You guys better come up with a real good reason why you're here, or I'm callin' the principal right now!" Paperboy said angrily.

"Yeah, what, you-a here to pick up your kids, y'know?" Mario asked.

"Career Day." Sonic said shortly.

It took only a short glance at one another to solidify that story.

"Career Day. We're here to give special presentations for Career Day." Crumbelina said seamlessly.

"Oh yeah? Ms. Citrusella didn't say nuthin' about Career Day!" Paperboy said.

Minty's eyes widened.

"Ms. Citrusella? Who would give her a teacher's licensure?" Minty asked.

"We think the same-a thing, y'know." Mario said.

"Well, Career Day or not, you better watch yourselves! And I better see you in class, or else I'll know you was lyin'!" Paperboy said.

"You don't go to class." Adorabeezle said.

This time, an outwitted and disillusioned Paperboy, realizing the idiocy of his own plot conventions within the very fabric of that world, went off and sat in a corner, sobbing about his wasted youth as Mario and Sonic tried awkwardly to comfort him. Adorabeezle looked quite a bit more comfortable with the surroundings, and she cracked her knuckles and smiled pleasantly.

"I just love crushing the spirits of uppity little brats." Adorabeezle said.

Minty opened the world guidebook and glanced at the computer monitor on the back cover.

"Yes, well, that may have been a more useful conversation then we thought. Citrusella is somehow in this world. We should locate her and assess her condition." Minty said.

"Now, not necessarily. It could just be this world's invocation of Citrusella. The signal we're getting won't belong to Citrusella if she's not the real one." Crumbelina said.

Yes, but in either case, we ought to find out where this Sugar Rusher signal is coming from. Let's get to searching. The sooner we get out of here, the better. There could be Probus gathering here at any time." Minty said.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the table nearest to the wall sat young Rancis Fluggerbutter, a tenth grader that had good grades, excelled in the art program, and believed in himself and his own opinions and didn't particularly like falling into trends. That, of course, made him the biggest ugliest loser in the entire school in the eyes of his peers. But Rancis didn't mind, though. He spent his lonely lunchtimes at the end of the "dork table", working on his sketchbook and listening to books on tape.

Rancis's two best friends were named Amy Rose and Yuni Berth. Amy was an eccentric nerd that wasn't a bad sketch artist in her own right. Her hobbies included dancing and eating chili dogs. This particular day, Amy had borrowed a piece of paper from Rancis and was drawing pictures. Yuni was a foreign exchange student, slightly short-spoken with an adorably hilarious lack of knowledge about the customs of whatever country Litwak Niceland Rush High School Academy Grammar School was located in. She was studying a Japanese dictionary for some reason.

"I hope I do well on the literature exam later today." Rancis said, rubbing his eyes behind his thick glasses and taking a break to sip his chocolate milk.

"Gosh, Rancis, your so good at literature. You'll do fine, okay?" Amy asked in a nasally tone.

"Hai, Rancis-san, you studied domo domo domo much!" Yuni added.

Also seated at the "dork" table was an awkward eighth grader named Candlehead Lowes. She was never seen without her candle beanie, even though it was against school code to wear a hat or have flammable materials. She was an on and off acquaintance of Rancis's gang, but spent most of her time of late (between making up moves for the mail-reply chess game she was playing with somebody in the state penitentiary across town) staring forlornly at the next table over.

"Hey, Yuni! Do you want some chili dogs?" Amy asked, holding out a bucket of chili dogs.

Yuni raised her hand at the offer.

"Hai, Amy-senpai! Watashi wa wanta chili dogs domo muchos, minna-chan!" Yuni replied. She then turned to Candlehead and asked "Oy, Candlehead-chan, you wanna tasty chili dogs, kawaii dono?".

"Ah! Uh, no thanks, Yuni." Candlehead replied.

She sighed longingly and continued to gaze at him. "Him" was Gloyd Orangeboar, the most popular boy in school, co-captain of the Litwak Niceland Rush High School Academy Grammar School Flying Wuggles football team, and permanent resident of the "popular" table, which was conveniently located a few yards away from the "dork" table. Currently text messaging someone on his cell phone, he was an oblivious little thing with a batch of black hair and orange clothing. He did not notice Candlehead staring at him, nor did he notice a lot of things. His current principal quest in life was to find the perfect suit for the formal that night, and he needed it to look PERFECT with his girlfriend.

Gloyd's somewhat unlikely girlfriend was Taffyta Muttonfudge, who up until she started going out with Gloyd had been quite famous as the school's tough girl. Taffyta served as further proof of Gloyd's utter obliviousness, as she, her parents, her friends, and all of their respective grandmothers knew that she was a flaming closet case, merely holding up a sham of a relationship with Gloyd to save herself a little respect among the student body.

She was spending her lunchtime staring at every young girl that passed by her. Currently in scope was Taffyta's unlikely best friend, the captain of the Litwak Niceland Rush High School Academy Grammar School Flying Wuggles football team, a beautiful young girl named Vanellope von Schweetz. She was the captain of many other sports teams as well, and possessed the nicest hair and the pearliest white set of teeth in the school. Tossing a football up and down above her, Vanellope approached her friends and smiled.

"You guys should've totally seen the sweet touchdown I made at the game last night! Coach said it saved the entire game for us. We were totally tied with two minutes left in the fourth period." Vanellope said.

Taffyta took some time out of her ogling to correct her.

"Quarter." Taffyta said in the most seductive voice possible.

"Huh?" Vanellope asked.

"Fourth quarter." Taffyta replied.

"Taffyta, I'm totally the captain of the football team. Don't be all up in my grill." Vanellope said.

"Whatever. It's time for class anyway." Taffyta said.

As she rose from her stool and stomped off to Ms. Citrusella's fifth period language arts class, she spotted senate president national honor society baccalaureate scholarship recipient Jubileena Bing-Bing stapling up colorful posters for that night's advertised Spring Fling Prom Hop Formal. Her eye twitched, and she abruptly ripped it down and wadded it up into tiny pieces, which she proceeded to sprinkle heartlessly in Jubileena's red hair.

"HEY! Taffyta, you jerk!" Jubileena screeched as Taffyta continued on her way.

* * *

Ms. Citrusella had thick dark rings under indigo eyes, a frazzled mop of dark blue hair on her head, tortoiseshell-framed cat's eye glasses, and a voice that sounded like she gargled with cigarettes and vodka every morning. She was an extremely apathetic woman that had graduated college with a doctorate in philosophy, but had then learned that nobody knew who John Stuart Mill and Aristotle were, and nobody particularly cared, and you were going to be forced into a meager-paying job in education no matter what you'd previously expected. And she desperately hated children.

As the students from her fifth-period language arts class slowly filed in, she was seated on her desk in a far-too-short plaid skirt, a purple blouse with the buttons popping out around her cleavage, and a fairly visible purple lace bra, and was flirting shamelessly with somebody's father.

Meanwhile, as per the plan, Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle were sitting in tiny uncomfortable plastic chairs along the wall of Ms. Citrusella's room when Taffyta and the other students arrived for class. Crumbelina and Adorabeezle tried to glance over Minty's' shoulder as she sat and analyzed the signals picked up by the guidebook.

"Anything?" Adorabeezle asked impatiently.

Minty shook her head and pointed at one of the readouts on the screen.

"No. The Sugar Rusher signal we caught isn't coming from Citrusella." Minty replied.

"She's certainly sending out some kind of signals, that's for sure." Crumbelina said.

Ms. Citrusella sat down on the father's lap and started caressing his hair, whispering something about bad bad boys. Across the room, some unfortunate student sank deep into his chair and thought about chocolate rabbits and happy things.

"But not the one we're looking for. That must be this world's invocation of her, and the real one is still out there somewhere." Minty said.

"Then sitting in here giving Career Day presentations is a waste of time! We should be tracking that signal to it's source!" Adorabeezle hissed under her breath.

"Patience, Adorabeezle. The obnoxious little twit in the yellow hat may have been onto something. We will look suspicious wandering the hallways of this place alone, and the last thing we want is to cause uproar." Crumbelina said.

Across the room, Rancis was preparing his notebook to write down every word anybody said, while Vanellope and Taffyta were whispering back and forth to one another.

"I bet you can't turn Rancis into the most popular boy in school." Taffyta said.

"What? Of course I can, dorkface. What's the time limit?" Vanellope asked haughtily.

Taffyta smirked.

"By the time the formal starts tonight." Taffyta replied.

"Right, and what are we betting?" Vanellope asked.

"A kiss." Taffyta replied.

"What?" Vanellope asked.

"I mean... a kick. In the butt. I'll kick your butt if you don't. Because I'm not gay or anything." Taffyta replied smoothly.

Vanellope raised an eyebrow.

"Who said you were?" Vanellope asked.

"Nobody. Because I'm not. Yeah. Totally straight. I love men. Yay abs." Taffyta replied.

Just then, Ms. Citrusella turned her attention from the unfortunate father and back to the class.

"Okay, okay, everybody pipe down or I'll reinstate corporal punishment. Let's get this thing over with, I'm cravin' a smoke. Welcome to Career Day. Today's the day we bring in all your lowlife parents so they can lie about their stupid jobs and build up your hopes and dreams of escaping your humdrum, pathetic, demeaning middle class existences until you shell out 100,000 cash for college and find out your worthless degree qualifies you to be senior burger flipper down at the Grease & Glob, and not much else. Those of you that don't drop out and end up crack-addicted burnouts under a bridge downtown can maybe bother some of these jerks at work to set up internships as indentured slaves and glorified coffee-fetchers all summer with absolutely no reimbursement." Ms. Citrusella announced.

The students met her introduction with blank faces. One girl in the back row suffered an existential crisis.

"Okay, folks, who wants to go first?" Ms. Citrusella asked.

She sat on her desk again and crossed her arms impatiently. But before anybody could volunteer to lie about their jobs, there was a knock on the door.

"Darn it! I'm trying to EDUCATE here!" Ms. Citrusella snarled. She snapped her fingers and ordered "Candlehead, get the door!".

The hapless girl was snapped out of her daydream about asking Gloyd to the formal that night to turn the doorknob and introduce a short, dark, mysterious, and beautiful stranger. Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle recognized her immediately.

She was a beautiful woman with the tan and physique of a California surfer goddess, chocolate brown eyes, and light golden brown hair topped with a yellow orange candy-wrapper bow. She wore a stylish Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt and jeans beneath her light brown janitor's apron, and the apron was designer and more expensive then it ought to have been. Her features were soft and dreamy, and she was most certainly the loveliest and most effeminate depiction of Torvald they had ever seen. So of course, something was terribly wrong.

As all the male students in the room (and Taffyta and Ms. Citrusella) paused to stare dreamily at Torvald, the prettiest janitor in the Litwak School District, the little computer monitor in the back of the world guidebook began beeping incessantly.

"Like totally begging your like total pardon, babe. I come knockin' round these parts to pick up your like... trash can, babealooie." Torvald said.

"You can pick up more than that if you want, big girl." Ms. Citrusella said.

She fanned her face and unsubtly uncrossed her legs, gesturing to the trash can next to her desk, which was filled to the brim with nameless papers and empty bottles of hooch.

Brushing strands of beautiful Pantene Pro-V-shampooed hair out of her eyes, Torvald strode across the room. And as she passed Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle in their chairs along the wall, she glanced at them and gave an unmistakably evil smirk. She left a moment later and the hormones in the room began to die back down to normal levels. Ms. Citrusella fanned her face and cleared her throat.

"Ho ho ho... now then, massive distractions aside, we're gonna go around and see what everybody does to pay for their booze. Starting with you there, on the end." Ms. Citrusella said.

"I'm the president of a banking firm. And I find your comments on booze very offensive." a mother Ms. Citrusella indicated announced.

"I find your haircut very offensive. Move it on down the line." Ms. Citrusella ordered.

"I collect garbage for a living." a father announced.

"I'm the lifeguard trainer at the rec center downtown." a second mother announced.

"I scalp tickets." a third mother announced.

"I work a busy desk job that leaves me too tired to do anything when I get home but watch reality TV and eat pork rinds." a second father announced.

Ms. Citrusella smiled at Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle.

"And then there were three. What do you do for a living?" Ms. Citrusella asked.

"We follow janitors." Crumbelina replied.

She, Minty, and Adorabeezle stood up and bolted after Torvald. The door slammed closed behind them, and after an awkward silence, Taffyta raised her hand.

"Ms. Citrusella, can I get an internship with them?" Taffyta asked.

* * *

"This is fascinating information, really. I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier! Now I know precisely what happens when a Probus takes a matrix." Adorabeezle said as she, Adorabeezle, and Minty hurried through the school hallways in search of the creepy Torvald.

"Then get explaining. What could have possibly happened to make Torvald so... so..." Crumbelina started to ask.

"Pretty?" Minty asked.

"Yes." Crumbelina replied.

Adorabeezle smirked.

"Ah, but that wasn't Torvald. Remember the unusual signal we were getting? It was coming from her. That was her matrix." Adorabeezle said.

Crumbelina and Minty paused, and then glanced at Adorabeezle with immense concern.

"Her what?" Minty asked.

"When a Probus steals somebody's matrix, they turn into a being I like to call the Uke. Their matrix is transferred to Fandom Heights, where it becomes an entirely separate being. I call it a Seme. The janitor we saw is Torvald's Seme. Unlike the Uke, which are harmless, weak, sobby, effeminate, and pathetic, the Seme are exceptionally attractive, dominating, and in most cases, very unlikable." Adorabeezle replied.

"If we defeat the Seme, will Torvald turn back to normal?" Minty asked.

"I'm not sure. But whatever the case, we should follow her. The Semes will be the top-ranking agents of the Probus. Destroying them one way or another will be instrumental to our mission." Adorabeezle replied.

Crumbelina pointed to the signal tracer.

"Wait, something's off. The Sugar Rusher signal is back, and it looks like Torvald's Seme is heading towards it." Crumbelina said.

"Really? Where is it?" Minty asked.

Crumbelina pointed to the signal.

"It looks like the Seme is leaving the building. She's headed into an apartment building across the street from the school." Crumbelina replied.

"Then let's not waste any time. We'll corner her there!" Minty said.

She glanced around to check and see if anybody was watching, before having her portal key open a portal, which the three stepped inside.

* * *

The apartment was dark, desolate, and utterly trashed. Crumpled newspapers, used-up boxes of snack food, and countless empty pints of White Blossom's ice cream and cigarette cartons were strewn across the room in a huge stack. The furniture was grimy, torn, and worn-out, and the only light came from a broken light bulb swinging eerily back and forth from the ceiling fixture. The TV played a fuzzy combination of several channels, casting blue shadows on the wall.

The front door opened and Torvald's Seme pushed her way in, carrying a large black garbage bag full of papers and the empty hooch bottles from Ms. Citrusella's room. She smiled snidely at the prone figure on the couch and dumped the garbage out to add to the pile, digging through until she found what she was looking for: a single paperclip. She smiled again and walked over to the TV, where a complicated-looking antennae device sat. The Seme unfolded the paperclip and delicately placed it between two of the wires, and the TV screen suddenly flickered to life with some kind of strange alien reading. After a moment, a shadowy figure appeared through the symbols and spoke.

 _"TORVIE-CHAN, HOW PROGRESSES YOUR MISSION?"_ the figure asked.

Torvie-chan knelt before the screen (tripping on bits of garbage as she did) and nodded respectfully.

"It's totally going sweet, dude. I got myself a totally sweet set-up down at the school, and like, nobody knows what's goin' on. Seriously, dude." Torvie-chan replied.

 _"IS THE SUBJECT RESPONDING TO OUR EXPERIMENTS?"_ the figure asked.

Torvie-chan glanced over her shoulder at the helpless figure on the couch, throwing him a faint grin.

"Yeah, dude, so far so good, y'know? He tried to get away when we let our underlings go all psycho on the game, but they totally snagged 'im on 'is way out." Torvie-chan replied.

 _"AND THERE HAVE BEEN NO SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITIES? NO SIGN OF ANY ATTEMPTS TO STOP OUR PLAN?"_ the figure asked.

"Nope, not that I saw, dude. I got a little worried there t'day when I saw three of them hangin' out down at the school, but I figured ya maybe had to invoke 'em in this world, even stuff out a bit, y'know?" Torvie-chan asked.

There was a long moment of silence.

 _"THREE OF THEM?"_ the figure asked.

Torvie-chan scratched her face.

"Um, yeah, dude. Didn't you like... send 'em on down here?" Torvie-chan asked.

 _"AS IF! CRUMBELINA IS A SNOBBISH GORILLA, ADORABEEZLE'S A KNOW-IT-ALL BRAT, AND MINTY IS A BIG STUPID MUSCLEBRAIN! DO YOU THINK I WOULD EVER SULLY MY BEAUTIFUL FANDOM HEIGHTS WITH SUCH FILTH?"_ a tremendous sinister voice asked angrily from the other end of the broadcast, making Torvie-chan twitch slightly.

Torvie-chan shrugged sheepishly.

"Er, uh... guess not. So's'at mean... they ain't from around here?" Torvie-chan asked.

 _"IT MEANS THAT THEY ESCAPED FROM THE ARCADE! AND IT MEANS THAT THERE ARE NOW THOSE WHO WOULD STAND AGAINST MY BEAUTIFUL PLAN FOR COMPLETE DOMINATION OF THE UNIVERSE AS WE KNOW IT!"_ the figure replied angrily.

Torvie-chan waved her hands.

"Dude, take a chill pill. Ain't no need to freak out, man! I'll deal with 'em myself!" Torvie-chan said.

 _"HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING ON THE EXPERIMENT? WE CAN'T ALLOW HIM TO FALL BACK INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY! HE IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR BEINGS IN FANDOM HEIGHTS! AND IF WE FAIL TO CONVERT HIM TO OUR SIDE, THERE WILL BE BACKLASH SO TERRIBLE THAT IT COULD DESTROY OUR ENTIRE PLAN!"_ the figure snapped.

"Don't worry, dude, he's almost done. He'll be done in a couple hours, and that's all. While he's hangin', I'll just head on down to the school and lay the total smackdown on the girls. That cool, dude?" Torvie-chan asked.

After a long moment of fuming silence, the figure spoke.

"FINE. BUT DON'T FAIL ME, TORVIE-CHAN! I WASTED MY TIME AND ENERGY MAKING YOU A BEAUTIFUL BISHOJO RATHER THEN WIPING YOU OUT OF EXISTENCE ENTIRELY, SO YOU BETTER NOT FAIL ME." the figure snapped.

"You got nothin' to worry about, Grandmaster Fanboy." Torvie-chan said.

She grinned at the screen, and a few seconds later, the signal went dead. She stood up, stretched her arms behind her, and turned back to the figure on the couch, which was a depressing, filthy, pale, scrawny, and bony creature in worn street clothes that was dazedly stuffing his face with more ice cream. His eyes were pin-pricked, his nose had remnants of cocaine dust on it, and he looked to be in the later stages of a severe drug addiction (which was apparently appealing to some deluded people in Fandom Heights). He was a pathetic shell of a man, reeking of smoke, body spray, and complete and utter misery.

"Well, y'hear that, dude? The Grandmaster Fanboy wants me t' have you ready to go by tonight! An' you know what that means?" Torvie-chan asked.

The figure lifted his head pathetically, showing off his weary bloodshot eyes and tearstains on his cheeks.

"You'll finally rid me of this terrible miserable existence?" the figure asked.

Torvie-chan grinned.

"Nope. We're uppin' your angst levels, Rancy-san." Torvie-chan replied.

Rancis gave Torvie-chan a noncommittal look and let his head sink back down into the cushions of the couch.

"Yay." Rancis said weakly.


	5. Torvie-chan

**Chapter 5: Torvie-chan**

It was going to be easy, or so it seemed to Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle as they bolted out the back door of Litwak Niceland Rush High School Academy Grammar School and raced across the football field towards a small block of apartment buildings and restaurants. They didn't come into contact with any Probus, until they came to the fiftieth yard line of the football field.

At first, the hoard of vaguely humanoid creatures before them appeared to be nothing more then your usual preppy high school students with bleach blond hair, pasty complexions, acne problems, designer brand T-shirts, and iPods blasting Lady Gaga music. There was no mistaking, however, the rather unique-looking symbol on their abdominal regions, the pointy teeth, and their obvious lust for matrixes.

"Ah, we've been discovered." Crumbelina said.

The hoards of Preppy Probus surrounded them, drooling, twitching, and mumbling extremely frightening things.

"They'll have to be dispatched, then." Minty said.

Adorabeezle was quick to shift into her snow beast form.

"We haven't got time for this! We're immune to their parasite, but I don't fancy finding out what happens if we get bitten or nicked in the leg." Adorabeezle said.

"We'll just have to make it quick." Crumbelina said.

The Probus struck at them. Crumbelina hardened five Preppy Probus at once and turned them into cookie statues, Adorabeezle swiped a number of them with her claws, and Minty squashed many completely flat with her strength. In no time at all, the battle was over and the Probus laid in a bloody pile on the football field. Adorabeezle couldn't help but laugh to herself as they casually walked away from the massacre.

"Taffyta had trouble with those? Honestly, we could have gently tapped them in the shoulder and they would have keeled over." Adorabeezle asked.

"This is only one type. I'm sure they get much more formidable down the road. But we must hurry. The source of the signal grows weaker the longer we delay." Minty replied.

* * *

Meanwhile, in room 113 of the South Litwak Heights apartment building across the street, Torvie-chan was in the middle of preparing to deal with Rancis once and for all. She unfolded the sofa, which conveniently held a Hide-A-Torture-Slab, and strapped the weak deflated Rancis down to it in the most non-leading-to-a-torture-scene method possible. Then, she set up a large stereo system and took out a nasty-looking injection machine filled with some dark glowing liquid.

"Look on the bright side, dude. You totally don't gotta suffer like this no more after we get all this into ya." Torvie-chan said.

She smiled and patted the tank of liquid, which was labeled "DOLPHIN™ BRAND 100% PURE ANGST. NO ARTIFICIAL COLORS.".

"Uh... huh." Rancis mumbled, halfway into a coma.

He didn't struggle as Torvald's Seme hooked him up to the machine, filling his veins with Rank S Organic Moping and Misery. Torvie-chan patted her victim on the arm and reached over to the stereo, flipping a switch and blasting some mood music at top volume.

"Aw, dude, don't look so down! Here, some MyChem oughta get you in the mood. Always works for me!" Torvie-chan said.

 _BURNIN' UP! JUST LIKE A MATCH YOU SLIDE TO INCINERAAAAATE..._

Rancis's eyes glazed over, his pupils got very small, and his lips opened as though to scream in torture, but no sound could come out. He could only writhe in agony on the table as he felt his pulse quickening, his palms sweating, and his matrix starting to shut down. Unfazed, Torvie-chan pulled out a 3DS to play with her Nintendog, Shnooky.

* * *

Speeding up the corridors of the apartment building, Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle could only barely hear the roaring chords of pure straight emo blasting from the third floor, followed shortly by a horrified shriek that could only belong to one Sugar Rusher. Minty nodded decisively, as the computer finally pinned precise identity on the signal.

"That'll be Rancis. But not a Seme or an Uke... a genuine signal." Minty said.

Crumbelina pounded a fist into her palm.

"Which means he's still unharmed! But probably not for long, with that freakish Torvald Seme tending to him." Crumbelina said.

The music got clearer as they got closer and closer to the apartment.

"MCR? That garbage?" Adorabeezle asked furiously.

They arrived in the third floor hallway, and the music and screaming intensified from room 113. Crumbelina tested the doorknob, but she found it securely locked and dead bolted.

"Allow me, girls." Minty said.

She transformed into her Minty Sakura form and then shifted into the appearance of an elephant, prepared to beat down the door. However, she was interrupted by a small voice near the floor.

"Excuse me. I need to get into that apartment to see my mother." a frightening chubby little boy in a striped T-shirt said.

He tugged on Minty's arm, pointing to room 114. He was the sort of creepy child that you felt bad being afraid of, but who you just knew was going to grow up into a heart-stabbing psychopathic serial killer.

"Okay." Minty said.

She simply widened the arc of her body, quite effortlessly taking out the entire wall, doors and all. She transformed back into her normal form and headed into the trashed apartment before them with Minty and Adorabeezle. The creepy little boy squealed in horror at the damage, rushing past a very surprised and weary-looking neighbor next door. Torvie-chan was understandably not pleased to see them as the three kicked down the door to the back room, horrified at the sight before them.

"Dudettes, who invited you in?" Torvie-chan asked.

"The boy you are torturing is a racer in good standing of Sugar Rush. And you are a being made of the matrix of another racer of Sugar Rush. We are thereby obligated to destroy you and stop whatever the heck it is you are doing." Crumbelina replied sternly.

Torvie-chan snickered, crossed her arms, and had a seat on the Torture Slab where Rancis laid motionless.

"Haha, yeah, totally, dudettes. We heard all about you. Couplea freaks too ugly and unpopular to fall into our beautiful little society we got goin' on... too bad, too bad. And so you come around tryin' to mess up what the rest of us can have an' you can't? Totally uncool, dudettes. Torvie-chan said.

"You and your kind were never supposed to exist! You are the run-off dredges of a game character. There is NO part for you to play in this world, you wretched monster!" Adorabeezle snarled.

"Aww, dudette, your just jealous... an' that ain't nice, is it, Rancis?" Torvie-chan asked.

She leaned down and tapped Rancis on the shoulder. The blonde haired boy began to stir.

"Mmph... I want you to pwess your body into mine and tell me evewyfing's gonna be allwight." Rancis replied in a quiet giggling sort of voice.

They were too late. Rancis had become an Uke.

"You fool! How dare you try to destroy our game like this! You will pay for your crimes!" Minty growled.

"Now, now... threatening assault is a felony assault in these parts, friends!" a new but somewhat familiar voice said from the doorway of the closet.

Rancis's Seme stepped onto the scene. He looked eerily similar to the Rancis we all know and love, if that Rancis had been eaten by a Hot Topic outlet store and spit out into a weight loss clinic. He sneered evilly at his would-be rescuers, a cigarette pressed cleanly between his lips and his arms crossed.

"Felony assault! Got it memorized?" Rancis's Seme asked.

Torvie-chan asked.

"Looks t' me like you dudes are surrounded. Meet my new buddy, Rancu-san." Torvie-chan said.

Rancu-chan grinned and flashed them the international playboy sign (the wink, the click, and the point).

"R-A-N-C-U-S-A-N. Remember that. 'Sup. Any you girls wanna take a ride on my pony?" Rancu-chan asked.

There was a long pause.

"Your what?" Adorabeezle asked incredulously.

Rancu-san grinned.

"You love me. Let's do it. Ride it. My pony. Get it? Leave that little wuss on the table and let's go get it on, hot stuff." Rancu-san replied.

Crumbelina slapped her forehead in disgust.

"Okay, we get it. Rancis has always been vain and a pretty boy, and Torvald suddenly now has a California surfer-style accent. Is it really necessary for them to act like that in every single line of dialogue, even when it doesn't make sense?" Crumbelina asked.

Torvie-chan rolled her eyes.

"Dudettes, it's called 'characterization'. Like, duh." Torvie-chan said.

"Ah, no. Rather, it's called 'I'm a moron and I can't write believable dialogue'!" Adorabeezle snapped.

"You guys are mean. Stomping around here and criticizin' our work like you own the place and like you are some kinda almighty Grammar Gods. You know what you three are?" Rancu-san asked angrily.

"Humor us. What are we?" Crumbelina asked.

"You three dudettes are homophobes." Torvie-chan replied slowly and very deliberately.

Rancu-san grinned.

"H-O-M-O-P-H-O-B-E-S. Get it?" Rancu-san asked.

"I would hardly consider opposing the defamation of our characters to be an act of homophobia." Minty said.

"There's no use arguing with them, Minty. They are Semes. They have no brains. They are nothing but brainless beautiful empty shells that exist only to have badly-written sex with one another at the slightest drop of a hat, no matter how unlikely or illogical the time, the place, or the motives. You will never be able to reason with them." Adorabeezle sneered.

Rancu-san cackled maniacally, drawing closer to the three girls as though to attack.

"We exist for one purpose and one purpose only. When our kind takes over the universe on the other side of Fandom Heights, we will spread... and soon, not only all of Fandom Heights, but all of the Canon Universe will be ours to command!" Rancu-san said.

Torvie-chan joined Rancu-san in a round of her own evil laughter.

"But in order for that to happen, dudettes, we gotta snag your matrixes." Torvie-chan said.

Rancu-san snickered.

"And once we do, you'll be simpering Uke wusses on the ground, and we'll take your Semes and do with them whateeever we want." Rancu-san said.

"Speaking of whatever we want, dude. I totally wanna do you right here, dude." Torvie-chan said.

"Only if I get to be on top..." Rancu-san started to say.

"That's it! This conversation is OVER!" Crumbelina roared.

And as she spoke, six pieces of caramel shaped as sharp lances went flying through the room in a tremendous whirlwind. Caramel lances numbered one and two made a direct beeline for the two Semes on either side of the trio, number one imbedding itself rather deeply into Torvie-chan's hollow body and number two just barely missing Rancu-san. Caramel lance number three impaled the main core of the Angst Injector, sending a shower of sparks across the apartment and igniting several piles of garbage into flames. Caramel lance number four circled around it's master in the air as Minty and Adorabeezle ducked under it, and returned to Crumbelina's hand in time to halt Rancu-san's lunging attack before it even started. Caramel lance number five followed through on Torvie-chan, throwing the Seme back ten yards and into the wall. And caramel lance number six hung around for a minute before mercifully destroying the blasting stereo system before Gerard Way could burst into another soulful ballad about suicide pacts and cutting your wrists and all those kind of cheerful things. Four of six returned to Crumbelina's side, and she sneered triumphantly at the destruction they had wrought. Adorabeezle leaned over.

"Show-off." Adorabeezle whispered.

"Very impressive, Crumbelina. But Rancis's Seme seems to have escaped." Minty said.

"We'll follow him later. Right now, we're going to be busy dealing with this trash." Crumbelina said.

She turned back to Torvie-chan, who was quite uncomfortably pinned to the back wall of the apartment and looked like she was in a lot of pain.

"DUDETTES! That was so totally UNCOOL!" Torvie-chan cried. She reached down into a pocket of her apron, inside of which was set a small mirror, and asked "How's my hair? Is my hair okay, dudettes?".

Minty approached Torvie-chan, cracking her knuckles.

"Your hair is as unnaturally lovely as usual, Seme. You seem to be trapped there. I don't imagine you'll be going after your friend." Minty replied.

"Yes. Well, anyway, let's see what we can do for Rancis." Adorabeezle said.

She motioned to the pathetic Uke of Rancis still strapped to the table. Unfortunately, it seemed, not much. Rancis was in an advanced state of emo depression, sobbing despondently and clinging desperately to Minty and Adorabeezle as soon as he was released.

"Wanellope. WHERE'S WANELLOPE?" Rancis asked pathetically.

"What happened to you, Rancis? What did she do?" Minty asked.

"I was... it was... where's Wanellope? Wanellope... I miss Wanellope! I want Wanellope to put it up my..." Rancis started to reply.

"Whoa, too much information. Let's have a look at you... what in the worlds were they trying to do?" Adorabeezle asked.

"Extract his Seme. His signal was that of a Sugar Rusher's just before we got here. Now it only reads an Uke." Minty replied.

Crumbelina frowned.

"That means he must have escaped from Sugar Rush before he caught the parasite. The Probus must have apprehended him somehow and taken him here to get his matrix the hard way." Crumbelina said.

Rancis whimpered

"D-D-D-D-Do you guys know where Wanellope is? A-Adorabeezle, you aren't not going to hurt me with your experiments again, are you?" Rancis asked.

Adorabeezle groaned disgustedly.

"There they go with the crazy experiments again! Is there just something about me that screams 'crazy lunatic girl'?" Adorabeezle asked.

"It's probably to do with your record on past experiments. I wouldn't take it personally, Adorabeezle. He's obviously not in his right mind." Crumbelina replied.

Minty had a seat on the couch.

"Though this situation is somewhat fortunate, actually. If we track down Rancis's Seme, we have his Uke here as well, rather then back in Sugar Rush, as is the case for Torvald. We can perform a little experiment and figure out how to restore a game character who's lost their matrix." Minty said.

Adorabeezle smiled.

"Brilliant idea, Minty. I do love an experiment." Adorabeezle said.

"In the meantime, we have bigger fish to fry." Crumbelina said. She approached Torvie-chan and said "You are going to tell us all about your species, Seme, and how we can restore our fallen friends to their former selves.".

Torvie-chan snickered and made a mocking expression.

"Yeah, right. You dudettes ain't gonna make me do ANYTHING. I ain't scared o' you." Torvie-chan sneered.

Crumbelina drew one of the caramel lances and held the business end of it dangerously close to the right half of Torvie-chan's torso.

"Aren't you? I suggest you start talking, Seme, or we'll have a dissection in addition to our little experiment later on." Crumbelina said.

Torvie-chan suddenly lost all semblance of composure.

"DUDETTE, NOT THAT! YOU AIN'T GONNA TAKE THAT, DUDETTES! PLEASE! I'LL DO ANYTHING!" Torvie-chan cried.

"Weakness: The matrix." Adorabeezle said.

She took notes, wanting to know as much as possible.

"And what happens if you do take a direct hit in the matrix?" Crumbelina asked.

Torvie-chan's horrified expression said it all.

"They die." Adorabeezle sneered.

She wrote it down.

"Splendid. How convenient for us! And once you die, Seme, will our friends be restored or must we take another step in urging them back to their former selves?" Crumbelina asked.

Torvie-chan looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Y'know, dudette, I ain't sure." Torvie-chan replied.

"Then we proceed, blindly, in the noble pursuit of science and knowledge." Crumbelina said. She glanced over her shoulder and asked "Adorabeezle, Minty, could one of you bring me the nearest closable container you can find? Preferably airtight.".

"There's a Tupperware here on the ground." Minty replied.

She held up a small square model with a sea green lid, suitable for tortillas or leftover spaghetti. Crumbelina looked pleased to see it.

"Ah, perfect. Then let's see what happens, shall we?" Crumbelina asked.


	6. Formal Invitation

**Chapter 6: Formal Invitation**

It was currently After School. After School is the most important part of the day to the students of LNRHSAGS because it only slightly edges out Lunch Time for when the most dramatic life-shattering events take place. Rather then actually going home, the students would frequent the school commons and the courtyard outside the main entrance, "skateboarding", "chatting", "hanging out", or whatever it is you kids do after school these days.

After School today did not hold very much promise for sweet innocent little Rancis and his friends, who sat under the officially-dubbed "Dork Tree", immersed in their own activities and an in-depth discussion of what they planned to do instead of going to the formal that evening.

"Gosh, who needs to go to a formal anyway? It's totally stupid, okay? Anyway, you guys want some chili dogs?" Amy asked, putting the finishing touches on her "VOTE FOR AMY" sign.

"Sure." Candlehead replied.

She accepted a small paper cup of Amy's chili dogs, nibbling on them and still staring longingly at Gloyd across the way.

"B-But still... I-I was thinking I m-might go." Candlehead said.

"Aw, Candlehead, I know you really have a crush on Gloyd and everything, but he has a girlfriend. You are only setting yourself up for heartbreak if you try to go after him. Taffyta and him are really close, you know?" Rancis asked gently, patting the green haired girl on the shoulder.

On the other side of the courtyard, Taffyta was really close to touching some hot female upperclassman's thigh as they sat together on a bench under a tree. Candlehead sighed.

"I know, b-but still... wouldn't we make a nice couple? I-I could... t-take him out for dinner... a-and we could go to the conventions together..." Candlehead started to reply.

Yuni crinkled her nose and shook her head.

"Iie... Candlehead-chan, Gloyd-sempai is so gaijin, he komo dachi tomo teriyaki sukimura sakura the Rearu Fork Brues. Iie iie, no way Jose." Yuni said.

Amy shook her head.

"Gosh, Candlehead, that's terrible. Maybe next year, I'll make people vote for you, okay?" Amy asked.

Candlehead sighed sadly.

"Th-Thanks, Amy, I guess." Candlehead said.

"Aw, cheer up, Candlehead. I've got an idea. Let's forget about Gloyd, buy some tickets, and go as friends, all three of us." Rancis said with a smile

"Four." Candlehead corrected.

"Huh? You, me, Amy..." Rancis started to say.

Amy gestured over her shoulder.

"Gosh, Rancis, you forgot Yuni." Amy said.

Rancis glanced at the exchange student with an eyebrow raised.

"Yuni? I didn't know Yuni hung out with us." Rancis said.

"Yeah, Yuni! She's only with us all the time!" Amy said accusatorily.

"Well, I'm sorry, guys! I don't understand anything she says!" Rancis said defensively.

* * *

As Rancis and his friends talked, the Popular Kids were across the courtyard, putting into motion their bet to turn Rancis into the most popular boy in school.

"Get ready, you guys. I'm gonna knock him off his feet so fast and so hard, he'll be popular by the time he get's back up." Vanellope said haughtily.

"I like, doubt it, okay? Rancis is WAY too far-gone to have any remote semblance of popularity thrust upon him." Gloyd said. He then smiled ditzily, nudged Taffyta's foot, and asked "Am I right, Shnooky?".

Taffyta was sidetracked by words like "fast" and "hard" in Vanellope's last dialogue.

"Huh? Oh, yeah." Taffyta replied.

"Last chance, Taffyta. Have anymore rules or provisions you wanna lay on me?" Vanellope asked.

"I'd love to." Taffyta replied distractedly.

"Huh?" Vanellope asked.

Taffyta shook her head to regain concentration.

"I mean... let's, uh... let's see. You have to take him to the formal tonight." Taffyta replied.

"What? B-But I was just planning on standing near him, thereby elevating his coolness up and through the roof!" Vanellope said.

"That'd be like, way too easy. I say you should make him the formal king, Shnooky!" Gloyd said, grasping Taffyta's arm and cuddling it like it was a video iPod.

"Yeah, that's a great idea. Rancis has got to win formal king tonight in order for you to win the bet." Taffyta said with a grin, eyes alight with imaginations of different scenarios for the "kick".

"What? But guys, that's IMPOSSIBLE! Everybody knows that vote is totally rigged! Swizzle is gonna win formal king because he is on student senate!" Vanellope screeched indignantly.

"Someone from senate ALWAYS wins the dance royalty, Taffyta! It's the way it's always been!" a nearby and as-yet-unnamed popular student said, horrified.

"Yeah, that ain't fair. Rancis will never win! The votes have already been counted and incinerated to destroy all evidence!" Vanellope said.

"Well, you better make up some new ones, then. There he is sitting under the Dork Tree, Vanellope! Hurry, go and get him to go to the formal with you!" Gloyd teased in a sing-song voice.

"Yeah, go!" Taffyta siad.

She gently shoved Vanellope towards her date with destiny, though the black haired girl stopped mid-stride.

"What, chickening out?" Taffyta asked.

"Uh... no. I need you to take your hands out of my back pockets." Vanellope replied.

"Oh. How'd those get there?" Taffyta asked sarcastically.

She withdrew her hands from the pockets and waited until nobody else was watching to rub them against her cheeks lovingly.

* * *

Conversation under the Dork Tree had turned back to coverage of that year's E3 when the three geeks (and maybe Yuni, but nobody really knew what she was saying) detected something amiss in the world.

"Do you guys... feel something strange?" Rancis asked.

They nodded quickly.

"Yeah, i-it's like... something doesn't belong here." Candlehead replied.

"Minna-san, sensor no kawaii window no tabamashi yuki ma, watashi wa nana ka ga ju jitsu saruto kotatsu ni wa!" Yuni added.

Amy shrieked in terror and pointed at Vanellope, who had just arrived.

"GOSH, you guys! There's totally a cool kid under our tree!" Amy cried.

Vanellope raised her hands in the "Live Long and Prosper" symbol.

"Um... may the force be with you, or something. Whassup, homies?" Vanellope asked.

She was met with a lot of blank stares from the others. So, she attempted to strike up a lively conversation.

"Er... that is to say, I uh... well, I was walkin' through the halls today, with my Notebook of +5 studies... or something... and I was thinking 'Hey, the formal's tonight, right?' But anyways, I was thinkin', y'know, I don't have a date or nothin' so, I might like... spent the night at home playing World of Warcraft or somethin', and then I was all 'Hey, maybe I'll go to the formal!'. So uh, hey, Rancis, did you maybe wanna totally go together?" Vanellope asked.

Rancis's friends could only stare in shock, trying to get past the slew of headache-inducing nerd-killing inaccuracies until Rancis finally caught on.

"W-Wait a second, Vanellope. Did you just ask me to go to the formal with you?" Rancis asked.

Vanellope scanned the conversation.

"Uh... yeah, I did mention something like that." Vanellope replied.

There was a moment of stunned silence before Rancis's eyes narrowed.

"Who's paying you, and how much?" Rancis asked.

Vanellope shook her head rapidly.

"Huh? Oh, nobody's paying me. Honest!" Vanellope replied.

Rancis glared at her suspiciously.

"There's no WAY a self-centered jock like you would want to ask a geek like me to go to the most important formal dance of the year next to prom and homecoming! There's gotta be some kind of catch. What's your game, Von Schweetz?" Rancis asked.

"Football and lacrosse and field hockey and soccer and baseball and football." Vanellope replied proudly.

Rancis did not seem impressed.

"No, you know what I mean! What's up? Are you gonna kidnap me and humiliate me and leave my body on the football field like some kind of bad CSI episode? Dump pig's blood on me? Do you owe somebody money? Or is this some kind of twisted bet from that obviously gay pink girl, and if you don't make me the most popular boy in school in an extremely short span of time, she's gonna make out with you against your will?" Rancis asked.

Vanellope burst out laughing at the last suggestion.

"Huh? No way! Dude, that's ridiculous! I just thought... y'know... that the whole clique situation we have going on at this school is... kinda sad, actually. So I figured I'd make the first step and reach out my hand to promote unity among our peers, resulting in more cooperation, tolerance, and higher school spirit, connecting us all in our hearts with fond memories of our harmonious high school days." Vanellope replied.

"That's all lies!" Amy shouted.

"BAKA DESU! WASABI!" Yuni screamed excitedly.

Vanellope shrugged.

"And also, my mom rented a limo." Vanellope said.

Rancis's eyes lit up and he nearly tackled her.

"OH MY GOSH, A LIMO! OF COURSE I'LL GO TO THE FORMAL WITH YOU! YAY! I'M SO HAPPY!" Rancis cried.

As he cried into Vanellope's shoulder about feeling like a prince and having all of his dreams come true, Vanellope maneuvered him to turn around so she could shoot Taffyta a thumbs-up over his shoulders. Taffyta sighed dreamily.

That all concluded with a horrified scream from out in the parking lot where unfortunate little Larry Ikana stumbled upon his father and Ms. Citrusella having a moment in the front seat of Mr. Ikana's pickup truck. Larry would later require ten years of psychological therapy, and would eventually suffer a massive nervous breakdown and rename himself Shirley, moving to a distant tropical island and selling overpriced fruits to tourists for the rest of his days.

* * *

Back with Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle, they had utilized what remained of Torvie-chan's laboratory in apartment 113 to do a little impromptu experimentation on what resulted from the gory end of Torvie-chan. For symbolic purposes, it was a glowing blue substance that resembled the popular depiction of a soul, a misty blob of something.

This was, as a matter of fact, Torvald's matrix.

It was currently safely enclosed inside the Tupperware that Minty had found earlier, carefully stuck in her skirt pocket. Tests had shown that it would not spoil and would not vanish away, and as long as they kept it enclosed and away from any freaky accidents, it would not re-manifest itself into Torvie-chan. The three could keep it safe until they were able to return it to Sugar Rush and back into Torvald where it belonged.

For the time being, though, there was a more important mission. They had to find and destroy Rancu-san before he escaped, summoned a large number of stronger Probus, or worse, found a way to come through on his goal of Ukefying even more hapless victims.

Once things at room 113 had been properly cleaned up and sealed away, the signal in the back of the guidebook began to blink incessantly, leading the three back to...

"Oh no." Minty muttered.

She was carrying the guidebook in one hand and Rancis's pathetic mercifully unconscious body in the other.

"Mmm... Wanellope, stick your tongue in my ear." Rancis murmured stupidly.

Minty mercifully knocked him out cold.

"No, no, NO! Absolutely not! I refuse!" Adorabeezle snarled, shaking her head rapidly.

"We must remain strong in the face of trial, girls." Crumbelina said, not looking exactly thrilled either.

They had been on their way back to the school, but were distracted by the crowds of headlights and the colorful banner now festooning the outside of the gymnasium.

 _"ANNUAL AUTUMN FLING FORMAL PROM HOP!"_ the banner read.

"A high school dance. You will never find a more wretched hive of angst and triviality. And yet, we're picking up the signal of Rancis's Seme from within. Our luck today is astounding." Adorabeezle said.

"We must stop Rancis's Seme from wreaking havoc, Adorabeezle. If he has something planned, such as, say, transforming every single male and female students of the school into Probus, we could have a real problem on our hands." Minty said.

"Let's make this an in-and-out affair, shall we? After all, now that we know the Seme's weak point, we just need to destroy Rancis's Seme, and then we can see about restoring Rancis here back to his original state. And besides, it can't be that bad in there." Crumbelina said.


	7. Rancu-san

**Chapter 7: Rancu-san**

"I was wrong." Crumbelina said as they entered the gym, subject to the sight of strobe lights, squirming grinding teenagers, the smell of perspiration, and BO and body spray.

"Hurry up with that signal, Minty!" Adorabeezle said, getting quite annoyed as teenagers kept grinding into her.

"It's getting stronger, and it seems to be coming from somewhere beyond that mass of students!" Minty yelled over the music, gesturing to the far end of the room. She set Rancis's body down in a chair for safe-keeping, rolled up her sleeves, and said "We'd better start digging.".

The three females set themselves to pushing and plowing through the writhing mass of sweaty high schoolers.

* * *

Somewhere within the mass, Vanellope and Rancis were actually having a fairly good time together. Rancis had endured an unnecessarily extreme makeover at the hands of Gloyd earlier that evening, and had probably too much done for a boy of his age. Nevertheless, he did look quite handsome, and even Quarterback Captain of the Football Team Jock Miss Popular Vanellope had to admit... when he wasn't doing weird things like studying or finishing his homework or watching sci-fi marathons or wearing glasses, he was quite attractive and... dare she say it, she might have been falling for him!

Rancis, on the other hand, was beginning to grow enamored of Vanellope's ridiculously stupid comments, her slow wit, her inability to go without mentioning sports for ten minutes at a time, and her perfectly white teeth. A slow song was rapidly approaching and he was highly considering letting her dance with him during it... rather then the usual trick of giggling, commenting on how lame the song was, and standing awkwardly two feet apart staring at each other without touching until the song ended.

A short distance away, Gloyd was getting a little frustrated with Taffyta. She had been behaving SO well so far. She had worn a dress and a pink necklace that PERFECTLY matched his outfit, she had left her hair like it looked best, and she seemed dedicated to spending the entire evening with him... aside from the fact that she was staring forlornly across the gym the entire time, whispering unsettling things.

"It's almost time for the royalty announcements. We'll see if Vanellope owes us money!" Gloyd said.

"Money? I didn't bet her money." Taffyta said.

Gloyd was confused.

"You didn't? Then... what did you bet her?" Gloyd asked.

"I said I'd kick her butt if she didn't." Taffyta replied.

Many things happened all at once exactly as she spoke. As Taffyta opened her mouth to speak, a small amount of saliva built up in the back of her mouth, causing her tongue to slip when she pronounced "kick". It created a hissing sound, which made the word come out more like "kiss".

Which is, of course, what Taffyta was really thinking right then, but beside the point.

As Taffyta opened her mouth to speak, the last notes of the last song faded out and the gym had fallen silent for only a second as the next CD cued itself up over on the DJ's turntable. That created a perfect theater for Taffyta's comment "I said I'd kick(ss) her butt if she didn't." to echo all across the gym, quite loudly. Of course, Taffyta was dating the most popular boy in school, so everybody knew who the "she" she was referring to was. Her bet with Vanellope was a fairly popular story and everybody seemed to know about it except for Rancis.

As Taffyta opened her mouth to speak, Vanellope and Rancis had been in the middle of a heartfelt discussion on how surprised they were at how well they got along. That led to a moment of them staring into one another's eyes, and in that silent moment, it occurred to both of them that it was time for a kiss.

Gloyd was an oblivious boy, but not so oblivious that he couldn't hear and know about the rumors of his girlfriend being the biggest closet case in the school. As Taffyta threatened to "kiss" Vanellope for losing the bet, something cracked within him. Suddenly, all the rumors seemed true.

"Kiss her? You want to kiss Vanellope?" Gloyd asked.

"What? No, of course I don't..." Taffyta started to reply.

"YOU'RE GAY! EVERYBODY'S RIGHT ABOUT YOU, TAFFYTA! YOU'RE TOTALLY GAY!" Gloyd shrieked.

"No I'm NOT!" Taffyta shouted.

She went pale and tried to defend herself, but unfortunately ruined her argument mid-sentence by happening to glance back over at Vanellope and Rancis, and seeing them about three inches from kissing.

"This'll be my first." Vanellope whispered.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Taffyta screamed dramatically.

She hurled herself through the crowd of people, tackling Vanellope only moments before she and Rancis had their mutual first kiss, and knocking the football player to the floor beneath her.

"Taffyta, what on earth are you doing?" Rancis asked.

Gloyd appeared beside him.

"I'll tell you what! Taffyta's GAY!" Gloyd replied.

"Duh." Rancis and about half the student body muttered.

"Not ONLY is Taffyta gay, and not ONLY has she humiliated me on the most important night of my life except for homecoming and prom and maybe my wedding, but she made a bet with Vanellope that she couldn't make you the most popular boy in school in one day! And if she lost, TAFFYTA WAS GOING TO KISS HER!" Gloyd roared.

Rancis's jaw dropped and he stared in horror down at Vanellope.

"What? Vanellope, is this true?" Rancis asked.

"I... I... well, yeah, but..." Vanellope started to reply.

"YOU FREAK! I knew there was a catch! You didn't like me at all, you just asked me to the formal on a dare! How could you do this to me? I was starting to trust you! I hate you, Vanellope von Schweetz!" Rancis shouted.

"I'll never forgive you for making a fool of me, Taffyta!" Gloyd added.

"NO, RANCIS! It was all for the money, at first, but... but I changed my mind! I love you! And dare or no, I want you to be my boyfriend!" Vanellope said.

"NOOOOOOOOO!" Taffyta screamed.

"Oh, Vanellope. Do you mean it?" Rancis asked.

Vanellope nodded sincerely.

"Yes, Rancis. I mean it!" Vanellope replied.

"I'm sorry I doubted you!" Rancis said.

He pulled Vanellope to her feet, hugging her tightly as they kissed.

"And the King and Queen of this year's Autumn Fling Formal Prom Hop are Rancis Fluggerbutter and Vanellope von Schweetz!" a random senate member called over the microphone.

Swizzle was currently upstairs, burning down the senate office.

"R-Rancis! What the heck is wrong with you? How could you let this jerk humiliate you and take advantage of you like this, and then forgive her seconds later?" Candlehead asked angrily, having been conveniently nearby throughout the exchange.

"THE REEARU FOOORKU BERUUUSU! HOONTOU NO!" Yuni howled unintelligibly.

"Gosh, Rancis! What happened to your brain?" Amy asked angrily.

"Ooh, sorry. I'll be needing that!" a very sinister voice replied.

From behind the DJ booth in an explosion of fire appeared Rancu-san, wielding a set of chakrams, with the blades looking like they were traced with toxic sugar sludge, and with a large disturbing lava lamp set on the table behind him. The students screamed in terror and all backed away from the scary boy, except for Taffyta, who was distraught and on the rebound.

"HEYO, KIDDOS! The name's Rancu-san! R-A-N-C-U-S-A-N!" Rancu-san shouted.

He howled with laughter, releasing a wall of sugar sludge that closed all the students inside it and confined them to a small heap.

"And I hate to be rainin' down on your happy little high school thingy here, but my boss, the Grandmaster Fanboy, requests the usage of all your matrixes!" Rancu-san said.

"But we aren't made of codes! We're real people!" a girl in the front said.

Rancu-san winked seductively at her.

"Don't worry, babe. I'll be dealin' with you lovely ladies in as well 'cuz we of the Probus don't discriminate our reign of terror by gender! And it doesn't matter for whatever you have. Got it memorized?" Rancu-san asked.

"Yeah, we got it memorized." the sheepish students replied.

"Now, on behalf of the Grandmaster Fanboy and ALL of us of the Semes, I'd like to welcome you to our Probus army!" Rancu-san shouted.

He held up the lava lamp and plugged the other end into a nearby power bar. The contents of the lamp began to hum and churn turbulently, emitting a bright purple glow all across the gym. Male students screamed in torture and clung pathetically to their friends and dates, complaining of a terrible pain in their torsos. Female students began to feel awfully irritated and unnecessarily abusive. A few felt like they were about to die in a tragic accident that would leave their boyfriends or girlfriends no choice but to heal their mental anguish in very unconventional ways. Some felt as though they soon wouldn't exist at all.

Except for Taffyta, who was oddly not affected by either affliction.

And just as the collective matrixes of the student body began to condense as a mist up in midair, the wall of sugar sludge on all sides of the gym was frozen with a sudden burst of deep blue ice crystals and shattered.

"WHUTHUFUDGE? WHAT'S GOIN' ON?" Rancu-san asked angrily, backing away and narrowly avoiding being sealed within an ice crystal himself.

"As much as I'd love to see this insipid hellhole burned to the ground, if you are going to make up a high school AU, you might as well do it decently." a cool vicious voice replied from the darkness.

Adorabeezle appeared from the shadows in her snow beast form, firing abrupt rounds of icicles at the Seme menace and his equipment (her new ice powers had been because of a small recent upgrade to her powers she had gotten).

"YOU! Don't you realize it's too late? I've become something new, something BETTER! I've become something real! I CREATED this world!" Rancu-san shouted.

He leaped nimbly out of the way of the ice attacks rushing towards him, before lunging towards Adorabeezle, sugar sludge chakrams spinning wildly and only barely deflecting off the girl's claws as she quickly transformed into her snow beast form to counter him.

"With my powers, with the powers of the Probus, this domain is OURS! This school, these students, this entire world, ALL of Fandom Heights is under our control, the control of the Semes, and the control of the Grandmaster Fanboy! Don't you see? You could be a part of something so much more, so much bigger, if you'd ONLY cooperate!" Rancu-san snapped.

Adorabeezle seemed to take extreme offense at that suggestion.

"I'd rather die! I'd rather be killed then lose my matrix and become a simpering wuss like the others, or a psychotic sex fiend like you!" Adorabeezle said.

"That's too bad." Rancu-san sneered.

He knocked Adorabeezle back with a strong attack and turning to the hoards of half-Probus students.

"PROBUS! Tear them limb from limb!" Rancu-san ordered.

The halfway mindless students looked as though they were about to advance on Adorabeezle, but were stopped suddenly by a wall of caramel. A fierce sugary wind tore through the gym, urging the suffering students back and away from the Seme, and tearing down decorations into a great tumultuous whirlwind of shrapnel and debris, including the lava lamp, which shattered into a million glowing pieces.

"Your plots are recycled, your character archetypes are trite and unoriginal, and your dramatic attempts are unconvincing, weak, and desperate at best." Crumbelina added, standing on the other side of the gym from Adorabeezle.

"Thanks for buttin' in! NOT! I hate it when people show up an' ruin my fun!" Rancu-san snapped.

He sent the two sugar sludge chakrams flying at both Crumbelina and Adorabeezle, who concentrated on fending them off with their powers.

"Where's the fun in this?" Crumbelina asked angrily.

A caramel fence sunk into the floor, creating a temporary cage-of-sorts around the Seme. However, the fence suddenly flew up. The DJ booth rose off the ground as did the floorboards, riding a wave of rock and earth that jutted up from the floor like a mountain.

"You have been evilly spawned from one of our friends. You are no longer fit to live or exist in this or any other world!" Minty, in her Minty Sakura form and in the shape of a rock monster, snapped.

She raised her hand and Rancu-san was lifted up on an enveloping quagmire of rocks and dirt, slowly sealing him within.

"In short, your plan is a failure and your time is up." Minty said.

Rancu-san squirmed against the rocks that sealed his hands bound behind him and his feet to the ground, lifting him and the shards of the lava lamp high into the air.

"WHUTTHUFUDGE! That ain't fair!" Rancu-san shouted.

Minty shrugged with a smirk.

"We don't exactly play fair, Seme." Minty said.

Rancu-san thrashed, fighting the ceaseless tide of earth that was slowly engulfing him, pulling his arms backwards and immobilizing him face-up.

"NOOO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! I'll MAKE YOU SCREAM AND BEG ME FOR MERCY! MERCY! I'LL DOMINATE YOU, EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!" Rancu-san screamed.

Adorabeezle approached the Seme from behind.

"Oh, so sorry, 'Rancu-san'. But I don't think you have the guts for it." Adorabeezle said.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO! BUT I LOVE HIM!" Taffyta shrieked from the crowd of students.

"No, you don't!" Adorabeezle snapped.

The prose cut away in time to hear, but not witness, Rancu-san's final moments.

 _Shwwwwwooooooo-POP!_

 _Shhhhlup._

"Got it." Crumbelina said.

She held up the Tupperware triumphantly, two glowing blue somethings floating gently within.

* * *

Next thing the students of Litwak Niceland Rush High School Academy Middle School knew, some hapless DJ was struggling to get another CD on the turntable as they snapped out of whatever silent trance they'd been in.

"Wh... What happened? My... OW... my chest hurts!" Vanellope asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Mine too." Candlehead added.

"Mine too." Amy agreed.

"RETSUU GO GEKIGANGAR VOI!" Yuni shouted.

"What were we doing?" Rancis asked.

"I... I don't remember. But I have this feeling. Cliques are stupid. We should have fun and all hang out together as a big group of friends tonight." Gloyd replied.

"That's a great idea, Gloyd!" Taffyta said.

"It certainly is. Because, you know, no matter what clique or in group we belong to here in high school, after graduation it won't matter anymore. We'll all be out in the real world holding down pathetic jobs for meager pay and a lame middle class status quo. So, we might as well make the best of things while we're still here in our stupid little fantasy mini-real world, here at Litwak Niceland Rush Academy Buttercup Daisy Brightening High School." Vanellope said.

A soulful background melody played.

"Yeah, I bet you didn't know all the students at this school were professionally trained dancers!" Swizzle said from nearby, smelling of gasoline and burnt matches.

"HEY! Not Another Teen Movie!" Candlehead said accusatorily.

Amy eyed all the trashed floorboards and decorations.

"Wow. Wicked awesome party. Wanna see my sweet dance moves?" Amy asked.

They did. They all did.

* * *

Meanwhile, up on the S.R. Plight, Minty set the ship's course on it's way to the next world, while Crumbelina and Minty decided to see about rescuing Rancis from his predicament or, if worst came to worst, putting him out of his misery. They laid the unconscious Uke out on a convenient table, and Crumbelina clutched the Tupperware in hand and made an expression of deep concentration.

"We'll have to be careful. If we're lucky, the thing will take back to it's rightful place without our help, but we must be ready for anything." Crumbelina said.

"Let it be known that should this ever happen to me, if you can't get my matrix back within twenty minutes, I want you to take me out. Disgusting, what those Probus will do in pursuit of a thrill." Adorabeezle said, glaring with disgust at Rancis's new fashion choice.

"By the way, no one is to hear of this moment. It doesn't leave the ship." Crumbelina said.

"Don't worry, Crumbelina. I doubt any of us could even muster the nerve to talk about such a thing." Minty said.

"Good." Crumbelina said.

She opened the Tupperware and held it towards Rancis's unconscious body. The room filled up with a blue light, and a soft wispy blue something rose from the crack in the container's lid. As Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle watched in awe, it twisted and curled on itself through the air and immediately seemed to recognize where it was going. It immediately zipped towards Rancis and absorbed itself into him. Suddenly, Rancis winced in pain and flinched, clutching his sore torso as his eyes fluttered open.

"Agh! OW! What the heck? Gah... Adorabeezle? Crumbelina? Minty? What the heck?" Rancis asked.

"I have to wonder if you really want to know, Rancis." Minty replied.

Crumbelina smirked.

"Good to see you back to your old self, Rancis." Crumbelina said.

Rancis sat up slowly and ran his fingers through his hair, still looking quite out of it.

"Back to... what do you mean? All I can remember is... Candi was acting all weird and then everybody else started acting all weird, so I made a break for it. Then I got to Royal Woods and all these weird looking little things showed up." Rancis asked.

"As we thought." Adorabeezle said with a triumphant smile, writing down Rancis's account in her notebook.

"And am I nuts, or was there a really pretty Torvald running around there for a little while?" Rancis asked.

"To make a very long story short, our game is under attack by an army of Probus. They have stolen the matrixes of about half the other members of the team, kidnapped two of them and yourself, and are setting off a plan to take over the universe." Minty replied.

"Oh." Rancis muttered.

"Important question, Rancis. When was the last time you saw Candi? She disappeared from the game and we fear the Probus may have kidnapped her." Crumbelina asked.

Rancis suddenly looked alarmed.

"Jeez, I don't know. We were in my and Vanellope's room playing on the PS4, and she suddenly started... I don't know, but she was acting weird. I noticed the huge bite mark on her hand, and I figured I'd go tell Vanellope or something, see if she knew anything. But when I got out in the hallway..." Rancis started to reply.

"The Probus." Adorabeezle said.

Rancis shrugged.

"Well, only like one or two. But I didn't know what they were, so I used a portal to get out of there. Went to Royal Woods, figuring maybe I could catch my breath there and then head back to see Vanellope, but, uh... dumb idea, in retrospect. So you say they got Candi?" Rancis asked.

"Yes, but as we found you, we'll find her, and Citrusella as well." Minty replied optimistically.

"Rancis, I've got a favor to ask you. I want you to go back to Sugar Rush and keep an eye on things." Crumbelina said.

"What? I'm not going back in there! They'll get me again!" Rancis snapped indignantly.

"No, no, you ought to have gained immunity from the Probus and their parasite. Do me a favor, find a camera and take some pictures, would you?" Adorabeezle asked.

Rancis raised an eyebrow.

"Pictures? Of what?" Rancis asked.

Adorabeezle smiled darkly.

"Oh, trust me. You'll figure something out." Adorabeezle replied.

Crumbelina sighed.

"Do try not to laugh at them too hard. After all, you had your moments too." Crumbelina said.

"Stand near the EXON engine, Rancis, and we'll teleport you back to Sugar Rush." Minty ordered.

Rancis scratched his head.

"Yeah, okay, but where are you girls going?" Rancis asked.

"To the next world. We've no time to waste. We must continue onward bravely, no matter what trials we may face." Crumbelina replied.

The ship was engulfed in a white light, and the occupants vanished for their respective destinations.

"Look at it this way. Nothing could be worse then the high school AU." Crumbelina said.


	8. The Second World

**Chapter 8: The Second World**

 _"Location: Fandom Heights, October 15th 2110"_

Our universe is a strange place, full of many strange and mysterious things that can cause wonderment or confusion. And oftentimes pure, straight, chilling fear.

The idea of "fear" differs from person to person. Some fear the abstract, things such as death, the afterlife, and finding out the meaning of their existence is just to deliver a pizza to a distant world, be eaten by some hideous creature, and then cease existing soon afterwards. And some fear the concrete, things such as insects, snakes, the deep end of the swimming pool, and heights.

But some fears are universal. Some fears are so intense, so terrible, and so frightening, they can strike the cores of even beings who are incapable of feeling emotions to any extent beyond a logical standpoint.

And what Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle witnessed upon their arrival in the next world certainly fell under that category.

At first, it appeared just like any other ordinary suburban neighborhood. Rows and rows of cute cookie-cutter ranch houses and the odd apartment building lined streets full of green trees, children rode their bikes in their yards or the street, and elderly people watered and worked in their gardens. In the distance, a high school, but not one of Litwak Niceland Rush High School Academy Grammar School's caliber, as it appeared very ordinary, stood proudly with an oversized flag flapping in the wind, and had a park set off to the side of it. It could not have been a more unlikely place for an adventure to begin. That contrasted the overwhelming stench of Destiny wafting through the air.

It also contrasted the teenage girl currently standing before the three other girls. Her name was Rose-Blossom Applesauce Annie-Marie McBee. She wore a shimmering sailor outfit ripped straight from the pages of a magical girl anime in all the colors of the rainbow and a silver cape that went all the way down to the tips of her glowing stiletto-heeled boots. Her hair was the deepest shade of pink and went down all the way down to her knees, and her eyes sparkled like amethyst orbs. The weapon in her hand was unmistakably a Keyblade from the Kingdom Hearts series, shining silver and gold and plastered with a rainbow of colorful gems of all kind. Rose-Blossom pointed the Keyblade in a straight line at the other three girls, drawing it across the group in a threatening manner and smiling a pearly-white grin that spoke of overconfidence.

"Halt, evil-doers! You'll not live to terrorize any more innocent people under my watch!" Rose-Blossom said.

Minty took a step back, her stomach roiling with nausea.

"Oh, sweet globs." Minty whispered.

Rose-Blossom laughed heartily and struck a pose suitable for an action figure.

"Ha! See? Look how you tremble and shudder in fear at the very sight of my pure righteous heart!" Rose-Blossom said.

Beads of sweat began to form on Crumbelina, who started backing away alongside Minty.

"That's not... it can't be..." Crumbelina started to mutter.

"They aren't supposed to be real!" Adorabeezle hissed, sticking close to her comrades.

"But it is. It's real! It's..." Minty started to say.

"A Mary Sue." Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle said in horror.

Rose-Blossom halted her threatening charge and speech, placing her hands on her hips in protest.

"HEY! I am SO not a Mary Sue! I have flaws! Like my stepdaddy beats me and he's SOOO MEAN! And I only got second place in my school spelling bee, and my class rank is only 3rd out of 255!" Rose-Blossom snapped.

Crumbelina understood something was very wrong the moment she began to panic.

"What do we do, what do we do? I recognize that as a Keyblade! She's going to destroy us!" Crumbelina said.

Adorabeezle was also starting to freak out.

"N-Now stay calm! Everybody, just stay calm!" Adorabeezle said.

Minty had panicked so badly that she backed completely away from the situation, and it was only once she was outside a small radius of the girl that she began to think clearly again. She glanced back up at her two friends with sudden realization.

"Crumbelina, Adorabeezle, back away from her!" Minty said.

"BUT SHE'S GOING TO KILL US!" Crumbelina shrieked in horror.

"Here, just..." Minty started to say.

She inched as close to her friends as she dared before grabbing them by the back of their clothes and yanking them back out of the way. Once there had been some distance gained between them and Rose-Blossom, Crumbelina and Adorabeezle seemed to return to their senses and blinked, still backing away from the girl as she approached them with her Keyblade drawn.

"What's happened to us? Why do we turn so pathetic if we go even near that girl?" Crumbelina asked.

Adorabeezle took a moment to poke around in the index of the guidebook and pointed to the tattoo on Rose-Blossom's midriff, one that eerily matched the ones they had seen marked on the Preppy Probus in the previous world.

"It's her species, Crumbelina. She's a Mary Sue Probus. Approaching her will subject us to the illogical reality of her existence. She is apparently smarter, stronger, and better then all three of us put together... in her own delusional little world. But she possesses the power to make others in the vicinity think so too." Adorabeezle replied.

"She doesn't look like the other Probus. It's almost as though she was once human." Minty said.

Adorabeezle shook her head, gritting her teeth in disgust.

"Not human. She was once an ordinary denizen of this world. The Probus infected her and transformed her into that creature." Adorabeezle replied.

"The people of this world aren't human?" Crumbelina asked incredulously.

"No... they aren't real at all. Unfortunately, we may be seeing a great deal of other creatures like this one. It seems we've landed in..." Adorabeezle started to reply.

 **OC City**

"Oh-see?" Minty asked in confusion.

"I'd actually pronounce it 'ock', there in the back of the throat." Crumbelina replied.

"It doesn't matter. This world is ten times more dangerous then the last. And what's worse, I'm picking up the presence of a Sugar Rusher." Adorabeezle sneered.

"One of ours?" Minty asked.

Adorabeezle's eyes narrowed.

"It seems so. I hate to think what might have happened to them." Adorabeezle replied.

"Let's not. We've got bigger things to worry about at the moment." Crumbelina said.

She gestured back at Rose-Blossom, who was still making her relentless charge.

"You evil Sugar Rusher bullies will learn better then to mess with MY neighborhood!" Rose-Blossom said.

She sprinted towards them with her Keyblade drawn.

"Right... we'll just have to kill the creature while remaining a good distance away from her." Adorabeezle said, attempting to remain calm while urging the others to join her in backing away.

"Hey, is this species stronger then the Probus we've seen before, defensively wise?" Minty asked.

"It doesn't look like it." Adorabeezle replied.

"Then allow me." Minty said.

She transformed into her Minty Sakura form, shifted into the appearance of the same rock monster from before, and urged the others away from her.

"Ah! Then a one-on-one fight it shall be? Very well!" Rose-Blossom said.

She stopped in her tracks , giggled, and waved her Keyblade menacingly at the other girl, her violet-hued orbs gazing at her with a steely heroic glare that spoke of righteousness and goodness.

"You'll never defeat me, you hideous beast, because I represent all that is pure and good and light in the world, and YOU are an evil creature with no heart and I have a heart, and it holds nothing but love for ALL LIVING THINGS! And you'll never be able to scare me, either! My will is as strong as stone!" Rose-Blossom said dramatically.

"Really?" Minty asked lamely.

And with the slightest movement of her hand, Rose-Blossom was crushed to death beneath two tons of irony and a gigantic summoned slab of rock.

"Well done, Minty. I rather enjoyed the timing." Crumbelina said with a good-natured slap on the shoulder.

Minty casually transformed back into her normal form.

"I thought you would." Minty said.

Adorabeezle took a few uneasy steps towards the slab, tilting her head to better see what had become of the Probus.

"Is that it? Is it... dead?" Adorabeezle asked.

As the Probus gave her final squeals of agony squished against the pavement, there was an explosion of what appeared to be rainbow-colored glitter. It poofed out from beneath the rock and scattered across the street, causing the three girls to leap back for caution's sake. After that, things once again appeared to be quiet in the ordinary suburb. The trio approached what remained of the Probus, and very carefully, Crumbelina picked up a pinch of the glittery substance, examining it with a discerning eye.

"I wonder what this is. Perhaps the source of the Mary Sue's mind-altering powers." Crumbelina said.

Adorabeezle jotted down her observations.

"Fascinating. Girls, do you realize what this means?" Adorabeezle asked.

"What?" Minty asked.

"It means, if we take this substance to a properly safe location and perform some tests on it, we might be able to create an antidote to the Mary Sue's effects! I'd feel much safer tracking down the source of this Sugar Rusher signal if that were the case." Adorabeezle replied.

Minty knelt down and began scraping the glitter into a convenient little bottle she found in her pocket.

"A splendid idea, Adorabeezle. Let's investigate that small shopping center up ahead. Perhaps there's a store or some place we can get the proper supplies." Minty said.

Crumbelina eyed their surroundings with a grimace on her face.

"Let's not waste any time, then. Another one of those... things could pop up at any time." Crumbelina said.


	9. The Mansion

**Chapter 9: The Mansion**

Towards the end of the OC City suburbs, there was a large suspicious mansion. The building had been abandoned for many years until just recently, when a new strange figure took up residence inside it's walls, overrun with ivy and tree roots tearing up the basement. And what made them even more strange was that they had placed a sign out front on the rusting iron-wrought gates that read "HELP WANTED: APPLY WITHIN.".

The gigantic hooded bouncer at the gates turned away anybody not dressed in a black coat... which, luckily for the strange and unsavory mistress of the house, was pretty much no one. A line of black-clad applicants stretched all the way out of the mansion's front doors and wrapped around the garden twice, with the interior half of the line twisting up and down staircases and finally down into the basement room, where the mistress of the house sat in a tall-backed chair with a clipboard.

"Next." the mistress said lamely, flipping a piece of very-well conditioned hair out of her face.

The black-coated being at the front of the line excitedly stepped forward.

"Greetings. I heard you were recruiting." the figure greeted.

The mistress giggled slightly and turned a page on her clipboard.

"Indeed I am, honey. Name?" the mistress asked.

The figure cackled as wickedly and forebodingly as they could, which was not very much so.

"My name is Exus!" the figure replied.

The mistress lifted an eyebrow curiously.

"Exus? Okay then. Hair color?" the mistress asked.

"I'm a natural blonde, miss." Exus replied.

She pulled off her hood to show that it was true. She had even pulled it into pigtails for the occasion.

"Eye color?" the mistress asked.

"Green." Exus replied.

"Mmhmm. Powers and weapons?" the mistress asked.

"My power is psychic ability, and I carry a samurai sword." Exus replied proudly.

The mistress rolled her eyes.

"Next." the mistress said. She waved Exus away to be escorted out by one of the creepy silent bouncers and asked "Honestly, why do they always have a samurai sword? They are so cliché and icky-poo.".

"I don't know, my Superior." the girl standing alongside her chair replied.

"Whatever. Next. Please state your name." the mistress said.

"Teng." the second figure said.

"No, I mean your true name. Add an x, honey." the mistress said.

"Oh. Yes, um... my name is Teng...x." Teng said.

"Tengx?" the mistress asked lamely.

"Yes. Tengx." Tengx replied.

"Very well. Hair color?" the mistress asked.

Tengx removed his hood and ran a few fingers through plain brown hair.

"Brown." Tengx replied.

"Eye color?" the mistress asked.

"Blue." Tengx replied, seeming much more confident in that answer.

"Alright. And your weapon and powers are?" the mistress asked.

"My powers are the powers of psychic ability. And I wield a samurai sword." Tengx replied proudly.

"Hmm. Well... Tengx... you show some promise in your listing of your hair and eye colors, and possibly your powers. So you're in, honey." the mistress said.

"YAY!" Tengx said, pumping his fist excitedly.

The mistress smiled generously and gestured to the blue haired black-coated girl standing to her left.

"My assistant, Voxwellizzers, will escort you to the initiation room. Do feel free to make yourself comfortable." the mistress said

Voxwellizzers grinned at Tengx and motioned for him to follow her. He was taken by her ruthless nature, her short dark blue pigtails, her drop-dead good looks, and her take-no-garbage attitude.

"So, uh... Voxwellizzers, was it? That's a pretty name... y-you mixed it up real good in there." Tengx said stupidly, staring at her with a loving glance.

Voxwellizzers giggled airily, leading Tengx through a dark corridor and towards a locked room at the far end of the basement.

"Why, thank you." Voxwellizzers said.

"Tell me, then... if we're to be partners in crime, my lovely blue haired beauty, we ought to get to know each other. So, uh... what name did you have before all this began?" Tengx asked.

Voxwellizzers grinned and opened the door, taking Tengx by the arm and leading him innocently forward into the darkness.

"It was Citrusella." Voxwellizzers replied.

* * *

Meanwhile, Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle made their way down the streets of OC City, following the beeping signal dot in the back of the world guidebook's computer scanner.

"Any clearer signal yet?" Minty asked.

Adorabeezle sighed irritably.

"No, not yet. But we're heading in the right direction." Adorabeezle replied.

Crumbelina shook her head.

"I just wish we would stop having altercations with the locals. It's getting really annoying." Crumbelina said.

As though some convenient hand of fate had been listening for the cue, a bright-eyed teenager in goofy clothing and wielding a plastic anime-styled sword came flying out of the nearest alley, shrieking out a battle cry of "SUDOKU!" and tackling Crumbelina to the ground... or rather, throwing himself pathetically at the female, only to be caught by the collar and tossed into the nearest convenient open sewer with a minimal amount of stress or concern exerted by Crumbelina herself. Ignoring the screams and pleas for help, Crumbelina brushed off her jacket and rushed up to walk alongside her friends again.

"And just the slightest bit pathetic, as well." Crumbelina said.

Minty shoved a second Keyblader attempting to stand in her way to the ground effortlessly, stepping over her without so much as batting an eye.

"Indeed. You think they'd learn." Minty said.

Adorabeezle rolled her eyes, casting a slick sheet of ice on the sidewalk behind them and sending an entire swarm of would-be attackers slipping and sliding out into heavy traffic.

"Of course they'll never learn. They all want to fulfill their wishes of being the little 'star' of the show." Adorabeezle said.

Minty nodded sagely, cracking the skulls of two oncoming samurai sword wielders together and discarding their unconscious bodies off to the side.

"Nothing wrong with wish-fulfillment, after all." Minty said.

Crumbelina shook her head and threw a large group of the overzealous locals against the nearest brick wall with a blast of caramel.

"If only they'd learn that the vast majority of those coming to Fandom Heights do so to read about characters they know. Their pale, trite, two-dimensional, unoriginal creations will never inspire such loyalty or fans, no matter how much they like to kid themselves." Crumbelina said.

"Let them live in their silly little world, then. But I can't stand it when they get all self-righteous and irritating when nobody cares about their precious little invocations." Adorabeezle hissed.

"OHMIGOD, YOU GUYS! IT'S THEM!" a voice cried.

The three Sugar Rushers turned around uneasily to spot a crowd screeching and running at them with the force of a mob of Beatlemania teenagers. Sighing immensely, they turned around and within a matter of seconds had reduced the mob to lumps on the sidewalk in various degrees of severe injury.

"And you know what's really pathetic? When they don't even bother creating a new character and just port themselves into the story as the heroes." Crumbelina said disgustedly.

"Ah, yes. 'I got sucked into the video game' fiction. How remarkably clever." Adorabeezle said snidely.

Minty chuckled, rolling her eyes.

"Yes. It's only been done ten million times in every possible section." Minty said.

They continued on their way down the street.

* * *

"My lady, our latest experiments ought to be done by now. Perhaps we ought to..." Voxwellizzers started to say as she opened the door to her mistress's chamber.

She suddenly screamed.

"Voxwellizzers, can't you see I'm busy? Do you remember the rule we discussed when I created you? About the scrunchie on the door?" the mistress asked furiously, throwing her sparkling diamond tennis bracelet to the ground.

"'If there's a scrunchie on the door, Toxie-dono is busy playing dress up.'." Voxwellizzers replied.

She winced and turned slightly away to spare herself the sight of her mistress in a long luxurious green evening gown and fully covered with radiant Maybelline products that she certainly wasn't born with.

"That's RIGHT, honey! Look, the stress has reduced my hair to a frizzy mess! AGH, I can never properly menace the world like this!" Toxika's Seme snapped, glaring at her assistant and brushing bright green flowing hair out of her face to show the other girl just how irritated she had made her.

Voxwellizzers covered her eyes and felt vaguely queasy.

"I-I'm sure the Grandmaster Fanboy will forgive you if your hair is only slightly off, Superior. But in any case, the line of applicants now wraps around the mansion four times. Also, Tengx has been properly... recruited." Voxwellizzers said.

"Oh HAS he? Excellent! Forget the other applicants for now! I want to see how my new little honey turned out!" Toxie-dono squealed excitedly. She clapped her hands joyously, gestured grandly towards the door, and shouted "Come, Voxwellizzers! TO THE EXPERIMENT CHAMBER!".

It was difficult taking the disturbing Toxie-dono seriously as she skipped down the hallway of the creepy abandoned mansion, taking her time to scope out every mutant plant Probus-turned skinny servant boy and girl and stopping every so often to lavish attention on the huge pictures of herself she had hung all over, but at last, they reached the darkened basement chamber where they had left Tengx several hours earlier.

"HONEEEYYYYYYY! Toxie-dono's here to check up on yoooooooou!" Toxie-dono cried out, throwing open the door of the transformation pod.

Smoke poured out from within, and a dark silhouette was barely visible through all the wires and unpleasant-looking needles and plugs. Suddenly, two glowing red eyes opened, and Tengx was heard giving out a low moan. Voxwellizzers smiled evilly.

"The machine is suitable for both uses, it seems." Voxwellizzers said.

"Yes. Ooh, I love the looks of him already! And I thought it really outdid itself pulling that little number on you, honey." Toxie-dono said. She cackled, unfastened the straps around Tengx, and asked "Honey, are you awake?".

"I am awake and ready to do your bidding, Master." Tengx replied.

He voice no longer sounded pre-pubescent. Rather, his tone was now better described as pre-apocalyptic.

"Glad to hear it. Come on out, honey, I can't wait to take your for a test drive." Toxie-dono said.

Tengx stepped out of the frightening pod machine, and for the first time, Toxie-dono and Voxwellizzers got a full glimpse of his new outfit. His brown hair was now a mix of silver and black, and extended far down below his knees. His outfit was entirely comprised of leather and death midnight raven black feathers, matching those on his new set of wings. One wing was angelic and covered in the same raven feathers, while the other was horned and demonic. His blood red eyes glinted in the dim light of the laboratory, and his clawed hands tightened around the samurai sword at his belt. Most prominent, however, was the Probus tattoo on his lower abdomen.

"Tengx, you look FANTASTIC! My plan is working out better then I ever thought it would! Can you imagine an entire army of these things, Voxwellizzers?" Toxie-dono asked excitedly.

Voxwellizzers laughed wickedly.

"We've made a definite improvement over Rose-Blossom, that's for certain. A few more proper recruitments like this and we'll have an entire army of Mary Sue Probus! This world will fall into our grasp and the Grandmaster Fanboy will be most pleased!" Voxwellizzers replied.

Toxie-dono giggled, curling a long strand of Tengx's hair around her finger.

"They'll even be able to take care of those nuisances Torvie-chan warned us about before her unfortunate demise." Toxie-dono replied.

Voxwellizzers rolled her eyes.

"The Sugar Rushers? Oh honestly, look at the guy. He'll make mincemeat out of them... and if he doesn't, I will." Voxwellizzers said.

"That's right. All the Mary Sues in the world couldn't hope to match you in terms of ability, honey. But luckily, I don't think we'll have to worry about things getting that far." Toxie-dono sneered cruelly. She then turned to Tengx and asked "Will we, Tengx?".

"I have changed my name. It is now..." Tengx started to reply.

A shrill beeping noise from one of the computer monitors distracted the three of them from hearing Tengx's new name. Toxie-dono rushed over to see what the problem was, and made a horrified face.

"What is it, Mistrsss?" Tengx asked.

"I'm picking up the signals of three Sugar Rushers on the grounds of my beautiful evil mansion! It's those horrible ugly Sugar Rush yutzes! They came here to destroy our plan!" Toxie-dono replied angrily, stamping her feet in a tantrum.

"I will never allow it! Quickly, Mistress! Order the applicants waiting outside to dispose of them!" Voxwellizzers shrieked, tightening her fist in fury.

"It's too late for that. They've already begun attacking." Toxie-dono said.

Voxwellizzers and Tengx crowded over Toxie-dono's shoulders and watched the monitor themselves, hoping to get a good view of the situation.

"But this can't be right, Mistress. The applicants are all getting their butts handed to them." Tengx said.

Voxwellizzers winced.

"Ooh... I didn't think they were supposed to bend that way." Voxwellizzers said.

Toxie-dono looked vexed, clenching her fists.

"Agh! And they're throwing their unconscious bodies into my beautiful rosebushes! THOSE WERE RAISED BY HAND, YOU IDIOTS!" Toxie-dono shouted angrily.

"What shall we do, Mistress? We will not stand for those Sugar Rushers to make such fools of us!" Tengx asked.

"They've slaughtered every single one of them and thrown them over the hedges, and now that brute is erecting a wall around the premises to keep them from coming back in! Mistress, send out Tengx and I! We will take care of them while you think of some way to keep the mansion and our precious machine secure. Pathetic Organization wannabes are a dime a dozen, but we can't afford to lose the machine!" Voxwellizzers said.

Toxie-dono clapped her hands.

"Right you are, sister. Very well! We'll do JUST THAT! Voxwellizzers, Tengx, go outside and give those jerks the what-for!" Toxie-dono ordered.

"Yes, Mistress." Voxwellizzer and Tengx said in unison.

They both stepped into portals similar to the portals created by portal keys and disappeared.

* * *

"Ah. Two more to add to the stack?" Crumbelina asked, amusement apparent in her voice as Voxwellizzers and Tengx appeared before them.

Adorabeezle smiled with amusement.

"You people never learn. Do humor us. Who are you supposed to be?" Adorabeezle asked.

Crumbelina pointed to Tengx, smiling patronizingly.

"The one on the left's obviously a Mary Sue Probus." Crumbelina replied. She then ordered "Go on. Give us your fancy speech, boy.".

"Boy? You dare call me boy? I am the cold assassin! I appear from the shadows of darkness and strike out of nowhere! My victims do not even see me coming before my blade claims them in the name of the dark! My power is unimaginable by any human imagination! There is no one stronger, no one faster, no one possibly more cooler then I am! I am the ultimate! I am the strongest! I am the fastest! I am the ultimate opponent! Prepare to bow before me, you pathetic whelps, for I am the terror that flaps in the night! I... am... Tengiroth!" Tengx sneered.

"TENGIROTH!" the trained opera choir in the background echoed.

Adorabeezle smiled cruely.

"Isn't that precious, girls? How he thinks we ought to be afraid of him. It's too bad we've discovered an immunity to his kind, so his empty threats are nothing more then just that." Adorabeezle said.

"Ah, and look at this. The one on the left's obviously a Sugar Rusher. How cute. Tell me, my dear, what's your name?" Crumbelina asked, mocking how impressed she would have been had she no dignity whatsoever.

Voxwellizzers pulled an electrified mage's staff with all sorts of points and sharp edges on it out of nowhere.

"My name is Voxwellizzers. And you are making a huge mistake underestimating me. I am a member of the Sugar Rush team!" Voxwellizzers snapped evilly.

Adorabeezle rolled her eyes.

"Are you? Well, let's see now and count them up, shall we? There's Vanellope and Rancis." Adorabeezle said.

"Then the three of us. Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle. Then Taffyta, Candlehead, Jubileena, Snowanna, and Gloyd." Crumbelina said.

"And we mustn't forget Candi, Swizzle, Citrusella, Torvald, Sticky, Nougetsia, Cinndon, Candace, Toxika, Damon, and Crepe. Now, who might you be?" Adorabeezle asked.

"She's Citrusella." Minty replied suddenly, staring in horror at the computer in the back of the world guidebook.

"What do you mean she's Citrusella?" Adorabeezle asked.

"I mean, the Sugar Rusher signal we were following before? It belongs to her. She's Citrusella." Minty replied, showing the other two the blinking signal on the monitor.

"That's not possible. That's not Citrusella." Crumbelina said, her voice ever-so-slightly risen with alarm.

Minty's eyes narrowed.

"She was. That thing there... whatever it is, it used to be Citrusella. She's transformed into this new being." Minty said.

Voxwellizzers cackled wickedly, spinning the staff around in her hands and striking a seductive pose.

"That's right. It's ever so wonderful to see you again, my friends!" Voxwellizzers said.

There was a long awkward pause on both sides of the battle.

"Well, shoot." Crumbelina said succinctly.


	10. Anything But Ordinary

**Chapter 10: Anything But Ordinary**

The unofficial official motto of the Sugar Rush team, much like the Scouts, was "Be Prepared". A lot of strange things happened in each of the worlds, and Vanellope instructed every one of her friends to be ready for absolutely anything

As such, it was difficult to startle a Sugar Rusher for any reason. All of them carried themselves as though they expected a chainsaw-wielding serial killer to leap out from behind every corner, giant meteors to crash down upon them from every direction, and the multiverse itself to implode in a giant fireball at any second. Their reflexes were insanely fast, they were quick on the uptake, and they could salvage their way out of sticky situations quickly. You could spring any number of insane obstacles in their paths, only to be met with a shrug, an "Oh well", and then a severe beating.

That explained the rather unusually calm reactions Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle exhibited upon finding out that a missing racer of their game had just turned up in a horrifying backwater world in Fandom Heights, except she wasn't exactly herself and seemed to have been turned into some kind of obnoxious original character.

"So let me get this straight. That's Citrusella?" Minty asked.

Adorabeezle shook her head.

"But it's not. In this world, Citrusella has been replaced by one of the godforsaken locals." Adorabeezle replied.

"So it's not Citrusella?" Minty asked.

"No, um... as far as this world is concerned, Citrusella never existed. Rather... she never existed, sort to speak, but here she never didn't exist. Er..." Adorabeezle started to reply, stumbling for a proper way to explain her theory.

"That girl is taking Citrusella's place." Crumbelina said.

Minty raised an eyebrow.

"So it is Citrusella?" Minty asked.

"It was Citrusella. At some point. I think." Adorabeezle replied.

She hated to admit it, but this was the strangest thing she ever had to deal with. And that included the time Toxika cleaned out her dead herb garden and accidentally dumped the runoff into the arcade's water supply, causing half of the game characters to zone into psychedelic hallucinations for a week ("Felix in the Sky with Diamonds").

"I don't know. Should we just ask?" Adorabeezle asked.

Crumbelina sighed heavily.

"We probably ought to, rather then kill her right out only to learn that it is Citrusella." Crumbelina replied.

"If you girls are done over there, I've got some serious kicking for you!" Voxwellizzers yelled shrilly.

"Pardon me, Madam. Before we proceed into the savagery, I was wondering if we might discuss your origins, in a friendly manner. Just one Sugar Rusher to another." Minty said.

Voxwellizzers giggled insanely and struck what she must have thought was a seductive pose.

"Do you think I'm hot?" Voxwellizzers asked.

"I don't see how that's relevant." Minty replied.

"What the heck are you?" Adorabeezle asked, in much less of a mood for Voxwellizzers's creepy mind games.

Voxwellizzers huffed, holding her mage's staff menacingly.

"You idiots, I already told you! I'm Voxwellizzers of Sugar Rush!" Voxwellizzers replied.

"Citrusella is a member of Sugar Rush, you pathetic wannabe!" Crumbelina snarled.

Voxwellizzers grinned wickedly, holding up her black gloved hands in a dramatic fashion and staring at them.

"Hah! Maybe she was, but that girl doesn't exist anymore. My brilliant mistress captured her and erased her from the face of existence! When your game came under attack by my mistress's Probus brethren, she was immune to the parasite. She escaped and tried to cross over the barrier of Fandom Heights to stop us, but my charming and wonderful mistress captured her and used her beautiful machine on her!" Voxwellizzers said.

Adorabeezle flipped open her notebook to write all the exposition down.

"A machine? Of what sort?" Adorabeezle asked.

"It's a magnificent machine that transforms people into cool, awesome, and obnoxiously flawless creatures. Toxie-dono has been employing it for some time, attempting to create the perfect Probus, and as you can see, she's getting closer and closer." Voxwellizzers replied.

She motioned to Tengiroth, who was standing off to the side, striking a maniacal pose and spouting off more dramatic monologues. His choir stood off in the bushes to the left, taking a water break.

"So Toxika's Seme is behind those horrific Mary Sue Probus. I suppose you're one of her creations too? The next step up?" Minty asked.

Voxwellizzers cackled, gesturing at her two-one-winged companion.

"Oh please. Maybe you don't understand. I'm not a third-rate joke of a character like this loser." Voxwellizzers replied.

Tengiroth is not a loser!" Tengiroth snapped furiously.

"Tengiroth!" the choir echoed.

"Right, right, whatever. I'm not an original character. In this world? I am canon, baby. That brat Citrusella and I are not the same person. She has been blinked out of existence and my beloved mistress put me in her place!" Voxwellizzers said.

"But why? You people don't bother replacing the other racers of our game you don't like. You just maim their personalities beyond recognition or ignore them completely to fit your needs. Why go through all that trouble replacing her when you could just find some other way to bend her to your will?" Crumbelina asked incredulously.

"Crumbelina, it's Citrusella we're talking about." Adorabeezle replied in a weary voice.

"Mmm, good point." Crumbelina said.

"Nevertheless, Citrusella is our comrade-in-arms and friend, and we will not stand for what you have done to her. In the name of the real Sugar Rush, prepare to die." Minty said fiercely.

Voxwellizzers cackled and twirled her mage staff around her, stirring up a shower of lightning and a rumble of thunder beneath her feet.

"I think not. I have come too close to achieving my dream to let you fools stop me now!" Voxwellizzers said.

"What dream?" Adorabeezle asked.

"Why, the dream I have held since the moment I was first born into this world!" Voxwellizzers replied, posing dramatically and staring at the sky again.

She clasped her hands together over what would have been her martix, and looking closely, one might have noticed sparkles emanating from her body.

"Do tell us. I'm morbidly curious." Crumbelina said.

Voxwellizzers brushed flowing strands of dark blue hair out of her face, battered her bright blue eyes, pursed cherry-red lips, and lifted a milk white hand to her licorice black leather coat.

"I will finally get to be with him." Voxwellizzers said, a veritable produce aisle of affectionate daydreaming.

"I hate to say it, but Rancis isn't interested in you unless you're infactuated with his looks or under sixteen." Adorabeezle said snidely.

"Adorabeezle, that is no way to discuss one of our friends." Minty said, glaring at her with disapproval.

"Ew! No, not Rancis! I don't sleep with anything girlier then me!" Voxwellizers said, looking appalled at the very thought.

"Nobody girlier then her? That narrows it down." Crumbelina said suddenly.

She and the other two simultaneously took a huge step back away from Voxwellizzers.

"And not you three!" Vowellizzers said.

There was a cough from the other side of the courtyard.

"Oh, Tengiroth is flattered, Voxwellizzers, but Tengiroth is dedicated to exerting his non-specific revenge on a non-specific number of innocent humans. He's going to stay niiiiice and single." Tengiroth said.

"Tengiroth!" the choir sang.

"Why are you speaking in the third person all of a sudden?" Minty asked.

The frustrated Voxwellizzers screamed in rage and clenched her fists.

"No, you idiots! Swizzle! I'm talking about SWIZZLE!" Voxwellizzers snapped.

There was a brief pause before Crumbelina laughed.

"Oh dear." Crumbelina said.

"What is it?" Minty asked.

"Her name. Take out an x. It spells 'Swizzle Lover'." Crumbelina replied.

"That's right. I will finally have a chance to win the love of my precious green headed brown-orbed daredevil sugary angel... my Swizzle!" Voxwellizzers said.

"A noble pursuit if ever there was one." Tengiroth said with a nod of approval.

"So let me get this straight. You have destroyed a Sugar Rush racer to allow yourself into this world. You are transforming innocent locals into pale, idiotic, and annoying shades of their former selves. You are 'betraying' your 'fellow' Sugar Rushers by assisting the group trying to sabotage them and bring about their downfall. And you're doing it all because you're in love with Swizzle?" Crumbelina asked.

Voxwellizzers sighed dreamily, batting her eyelashes.

"Toxie-dono promised! She said we'll fall in love and get married and have beautiful little Sugar Rusher babies! If I prove myself strong enough, there's no way Swizzle will continue to ignore me and fail to acknowledge my existence!" Voxwellizzers replied.

Adorabeezle had been oddly silent for the last few moments, but it appeared that she would not remain so for long. There was sweat beading on her brow, her eyes were as narrow as they could possibly get, her fists were clenched, and she was gritting her teeth as though holding back a violent explosion of curses and angry words. She interrupted Voxwellizzers with a small grunt, only a warning of the fury that was to come. Minty turned to her suddenly, recognizing the look on her face.

"Adorabeezle, calm down." Minty ordered.

"I am calm." Adorabeezle said, her lip twitching with seething furious hatred.

"It's not worth getting worked up over, Adorabeezle. She's a silly fool and has been depressingly misinformed. Don't let it bother you." Crumbelina said.

Adorabeezle turned to glare at her friends.

"Don't let it bother me? Have you taken a moment to think... a moment to even vaguely consider exactly what it is this imbecile is prattling on about?" Adorabeezle asked angrily.

"Adorabeezle, don't lose your temper." Minty replied, her tone rising.

"Madame, look at me! Look at me! Look me in the eyes, this instant!" Adorabeezle snapped suddenly at Voxwellizzers, pointing at her.

Voxwellizzers crossed her arms and complied.

"What? You got a bone to pick with me?" Voxwellizzers asked.

"Look me in the eyes. Are you looking? Do we have eye contact? Can you see the expression on my face? You can? Good. Now, let's see... where to begin... oh yes..." Adorabeezle started to reply.

Voxwellizzer's eyes bugged out of her head as Adorabeezle exploded into a vicious tirade.

"WE. DON'T. HAVE. HEARTS! We do not have hearts! There is but one rule in the Game Character's Codebook regarding the definition of any sort of game character, and that rule is that GAME CHARACTERS. DO NOT. HAVE. HEARTS! We have matrixes, NOT hearts! You are not capable of falling in love with Swizzle because falling in love is an emotion, and emotions are born in the heart or matrix, depending on who it is." Adorabeezle yelled.

"But he makes me feel like I h..." Voxwellizzers started to say, eyes wide and voice tiny.

"DON'T YOU GIVE ME THAT GARBAGE! The operative term there is 'like'! Feel 'like' you have a heart or matrix... but you DON'T. Because you are THE HEARTLESS AND MATRIXLESS SEME OF A GAME CHARACTER. AND GAME CHARACTERS. DO NOT. HAVE. HEARTS! Any emotions you may think you are detecting are in an intellectual sense only! I am currently not furious out of my mind with your utter disregard for any sort of logic besides your own desperate little delusions. You do not seem to understand this fact, making your pathetic rantings and ravings and moronic behaviors absolutely inexcusable!" Adorabeezle screeched.

Minty sighed from nearby.

"I hate when she gets like this." Minty said.

Adorabeezle wasn't done yet. She was so 'furious' that she was beginning to glow with an icy aura.

"And furthermore, game characters are not born by traditional means. They are created, you thickheaded dolt." Adorabeezle snapped.

Voxwellizzers, shamed and enraged at the severe thrashing her dreams had just received, took a few steps back away from the three girls and glared at them.

"Enough! No more talk! It's time for the three of you to suffer the same fate as your comrades! We will take your matrixes and your Semes will be helpless to disobey the Grandmaster Fanboy's command!" Voxwellizzers snapped.

"I assure you, Madame, watching your attempt will be most entertaining." Crumbelina said smugly.

Voxwellizzers smiled.

"Or perhaps... perhaps instead, I will capture you and present you to my mistress Toxie-dono as a trio of new experiments. You too could come into this world replaced by new existences, ones that would not be so adamantly against our plans!" Voxwellizzers said.

"We're going to kill you now." Adorabeezle said, still red-faced.

"Your attempt will be most entertaining." Voxwellizzers said, mocking Crumbelina's voice. She extended a graceful hand to point at them and ordered "Tengiroth, deal with these three!".

"Yes, Voxwellizzers!" Teniroth said.

He cackled maniacally and drew out a seven-foot-long samurai katana, black feathers and sparkles flying through the air around him, and eyes glowing the same red shade of sanguine and blood.

"Tengiroth!" the choir sang.

"I'm heading back inside to check on our mistress!" Voxwellizzers said.

She summoned a portal to step into.

"After all that drama, you're not even going to fight us yourself?" Minty asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I wouldn't dirty my hands on the likes of you." Voxwellizzers replied.

She stepped through the portal.

* * *

Once back inside the mansion, Voxwellizzers let out a horrified girlish screech and burst into tears. Lightning and thunder filled the halls and exploded around her as she ran towards the master chamber with her face buried in her hands, plowing over hoards of inattentive guards on the way. Her not-exactly-a-matrix ached with the pain of Adorabeezle's cruel words and she created a rainstorm of tears as she headed for a word with Toxie-dono. She skidded to a halt outside the master chamber, ignored the polka dot girdle tied up to the doorknob, and banged on the door with a fist.

"Mistress! Mistress Toxie-dono, I-I must speak with you! Have you secured the machine?" Voxwellizzers asked. She turned the doorknob, stepped inside, and asked "A-Are you in, Mist...".

She screamed.

"Rub those back legs. Oh yes, you're a dirty little honeybee..." Toxie-dono started to say as she stared up at a big screen TV, which showed a video of what appeared to be a very close-up view of a bee pollinating a flower.

She then noticed Voxwellizzers and threw her pink remote control to the ground.

"Ah! Voxwellizzers, can't you see I'm busy? Do you remember the rule we discussed when I created you? About the girdle on the door?" Toxie-dono asked furiously.

Voxwellizzers gaped in horror and covered her eyes, now crying for a very different reason.

"But, Superior, I thought it was a scrunchie!" Voxwellizzers replied.

Toxie-dono huffed, glaring at her to show her icky assistant just how irritated she had made her.

"When there's a scrunchie on the door, Toxie-dono is busy playing dress up! But when there's a girdle on the door, Toxie-dono is busy watching her special videos!" Toxie-dono said angrily.

"I'm sorry! It won't happen again!" Voxwellizzers said.

"Yes, well, make sure that it doesn't! Have you finished dealing with those fools outside yet?" Toxie-dono asked.

"N-Not yet. I have Tengiroth taking care of them as we speak." Voxwellizzers replied, wiping her eyes.

Toxie-dono groaned.

"I thought I told you to do it! Seriously, Voxwellizzers, can't you ever follow orders? What am I going to do with you?" Toxie-dono asked.

"W-Well, I did! I mean... I was going to fight them, b-but one of them... s-she said that Swizzle could never love me because we don't have matrixes or hearts!" Voxwellizzers replied, bursting into tears all over again.

Toxie-dono cocked her head slightly.

"Oh, she did, huh?" Toxie-dono asked.

"W-Well, is it true? I-Is it true that my dream will never be realized? That Swizzle and I can never be together?" Voxwellizzers asked.

Toxie-dono twisted a finger around in her green hair and grinned sheepishly.

"Weeeeeell... maaaaybe." Toxie-dono replied.

Voxwellizzers gasped in melodramatic horror.

"Then you lied to me! You said if I helped you, you'd... you'd make it so Swizzle and I could be together!" Voxwellizzers said.

Toxie-dono groaned and tossed her head, waving her off with a flick of the wrist.

"I'm working on it, honey. You've already seen what I can do when given the proper materials. I'm sure with a little work I can make it possible... sorta." Toxie-dono said.

"'Sorta'?" Voxwellizzers asked.

"You don't have a matrix nor a heart, honey. It kinda comes with the territory. BU-U-U-UT! No whining about it now! We've got to deal with those hot little Sugar Rush miscreants before they ruin our entire operation." Toxie-dono replied.

"You... you don't even care! I'll never be able to make my dream come true! A-And you promised you'd help me! And you lied to me! And you don't even care! How could you? How could you do this to MEEEEEHEEHEEHEEEEEE?" Voxwellizzers asked angrily.

In an explosion of falsetto trilling sobs, she turned on her heels and sped down the hall in the opposite direction, screeching, wailing, and setting off miniature lightning storms and generally creating quite a tantrum.

"Gosh, what a crybaby." Toxie-dono said distastefully.


	11. Toxie-dono

**Chapter 11: Toxie-dono**

Back out in the garden, Tengiroth was engaged in a fierce battle with Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle, doing quite well at holding his own, despite the unbelievable disadvantage he was in.

Unfortunately, a seven-foot katana, while cool looking and certainly intimidating, is just not all that practical for a battle. Tengiroth was able to attack with it, mostly by spinning around in a circle with his arms stretched out and hoping it would nick the three girls enough to make them give up their unceasing barrage of caramel, strength, and stabbity-type attacks. His two-one wings flapped in the air behind him, his hair rustled majestically in the breeze, and his choir did an admirable job of keeping up with the battle and changing the pace of the song accordingly.

"You three ought to be trembling at my power! Trembling, do you hear? Greater people than the likes of you have trembled at my power! You will tremble, or you will die!" Tengiroth yelled viciously, taking a break from his onslaught.

Minty decided to take a breather, stepping out of Tengiroth's immense reach.

"Unfortunately, we have taken precautions to avoid trembling at your pathetic 'power'." Minty said.

"There are none that can avoid trembling at my power! None! No man alive! Not one! No man alive can avoid trembling at my power!" Tengiroth cried, holding his sword straight up above him in a dramatic fashion.

Crumbelina sighed heavily.

"There he goes again." Crumbelina said.

Minty groaned.

"I would be much more mildly impressed with his fighting abilities if he would stop taking breaks to spew out poetry." Minty said.

"Perhaps you could introduce another huge ironic boulder, Minty. It worked so well last time." Adorabeezle said.

Minty sighed.

"I don't know. It takes a lot of energy to both transform and then do such a thing so quickly... and this one seems to be much stronger than the monstrosity we ran into earlier." Minty said.

Crumbelina took a moment of pause to consider their options, while keeping her eyes on the beautiful flowing veil of silver silk that was Tengiroth's hair.

"Hm." Crumbelina muttered.

Tengiroth was right in the middle of his favorite sonnet about death and blood and sanguine, only to see that his intended victims appeared to be discussing something calmly among themselves.

"Are you listening to me? You DARE to downplay the fury of Tengiroth's mighty poetry! You dare to turn your heads away from him as he reaches his most glorious majesty? You dare to..." Tengiroth started to ask angrily.

"Get on with it!" Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle replied in unison.

And much to their half-relief, half-chagrin, Tengiroth seemed like he really was finally getting on with it. A dark glow surrounded him, his eyes intensified their blood red and sanguine color, and he began to float a few feet off the ground.

"Very well then! Tengiroth is leveling into his second form!" Tengiroth shouted.

The choir would have sung out their usual echo, but they were busy moving around in the bushes to make room for a 100-piece symphonic orchestra to conduct the One-Two-Winged Angel Tengiroth Second Level Angel's Teardrop Blood and Also Sanguine Sanctimony Suite Mark Three. Tengiroth, in the meantime, cloaked his entire body in waves of black magic that ebbed and flowed over every inch of him, throwing off an unearthly black glow that would slowly transform him into his Second Form. It was a mesmerizing and complicated process that would take six months alone for the programmers to animate in full FMV mode.

"Oh, not a second form. This could be very difficult." Minty said in a voice that suggested she didn't really believe so.

"Yes, I am inclined to believe he's all talk." Adorabeezle said.

Crumbelina settled down on a convenient park bench to watch the four-hour animation sequence to depict Tengiroth's leveling up.

"Indeed. I have a rather good idea as to how to get rid of this nuisance for good." Crumbelina said.

Adorabeezle settled down next to her.

"Do tell." Adorabeezle said.

Minty joined them a moment later, having fetched three refreshing fruit smoothies from a nearby concession stand for the long wait.

* * *

 _Dear Diary,_

 _You took my heart,_

 _Deceived me right from the start._

 _You showed me dreams,_

 _I wish they'd turn into real._

 _You broke a promise and made me realize,_

 _It was all just a lie..._

Voxwellizzers lifted the pen from the paper and regarded her poem with a discerning eye, quite proud of the misery she had evoked in it until she realized that it was actually the chorus of the song "Angels" by Within Temptation, currently playing on loop on her iPod.

"Darn it!" Voxwellizzers yelled angrily.

She stood up and threw her diary against the wall in fury, followed shortly by her iPod before she realized what she was doing. It only took a few seconds of staring at the broken audio components on the floor for Voxwellizzers to decide on her course of action. Her and Swizzle could never truly be. She'd been deceived by a very flaming shell of a Sugar Rush member, and she had manipulated her into doing terrible things and betraying her own friends. She was incapable of writing her own poetry and her $400 iPod laid shattered in pieces on the ground.

Voxwellizzers could not go on like this.

She rose wearily and stumbled dramatically down the hallway, eyes blankly staring straight ahead and her blue curls falling wispy into her face. Tears left stains on her cheeks as she made her way to the grand staircase and headed down into the basement room where her cursed mistress had brought her into existence.

And it wasn't even her own existence!

What kind of cruel world was it where a girl as beautiful and powerful as Voxwellizzers could be taken advantage of by a wicked... whatever she was such as Toxie-dono? In what kind of cruel world could she be denied the one thing she wanted oh so desperately more than anything else in the world? Thoughts of Swizzle danced in her head as she threw open the door to the basement room in which rested the transformation pod. She remembered miserably the first time she had woken up there. The pod door opening, Toxie-dono standing above her and welcoming her into her new world. It must have been ten minutes she sat there staring at the pod and utterly feeling sorry for herself. Her attention was only broken when she glanced at the security monitor off to the right, where Tengiroth could be seen in the throes of his twenty-minute leveling up animation. One of the cameras barely included the silhouettes of the three Sugar Rush racers. Voxwellizzers sighed wistfully, drowning in self-pity and loathing after her heartless betrayal.

"I must only upgrade. I must upgrade... I-I will become the first Sugar Rusher with a heart and not a matrix! Yes! I will give myself a heart! I'll show them... I can have a heart... I will fall in love! I will fall in love!" Voxwellizzers said.

She reached for the big red lever that Toxie-dono had told her never to touch. It was certainly the lever that would install a heart into her next incarnation. The door to the pod slid open and Voxwellizzers carefully backed in, strapping her arms and legs down accordingly before leaning her head back to take a deep breath.

"In your FACE, Toxie-dono! I will break free of your lies!" Voxwellizzers screamed triumphantly.

The door to the pod slid closed and sealed shut.

* * *

Elsewhere in the mansion, Toxie-dono was about to return calmly to her special movie time when she received a rather angry message via satellite TV link from somebody on a far-off world who obviously scared her very very much.

 _"I KNEW I SHOULDN'T HAVE LEFT THIS OPERATION UP TO YOU, YOU GREEN HAIRED WEAKLING! THANKS TO YOU, OUR PROJECT MARY SUE IS BACKED UP UNTIL WE CAN REPLACE THE HOARDS OF APPLICANTS THAT THOSE THREE JERKS LEVELED!"_ the Grandmaster Fanboy yelled angrily.

"I-I'm sorry, Mr. Grandmaster Fanboy! It's true there have been a few setbacks, but please, give me another chance!" Toxie-dono pleaded, twisting her hair around her fingers nervously.

 _"THE QUESTION IS WHETHER I FEEL YOU REALLY DESERVE ANOTHER CHANCE, TOXIE-DONO! I'VE WASTED FAR TOO MUCH OF MY TIME AND MY RESOURCES TRYING TO COVER UP YOUR NUMEROUS MISTAKES!"_ the Grandmaster Fanboy said.

Toxie-dono looked scandalized.

"Aww, honey, you don't meant that! Of course I deserve another chance! Look at what I made! Look at Tengiroth! He's a great example of what Project Mary Sue could bring to our ranks! Please give me another try." Toxie-dono pleaded.

 _"RIDDLE ME THIS, THEN. YOU'RE BARRICADED UP IN YOUR SUSPICIOUS OLD MANSION AND OUTSIDE, ABOUT TO TEAR THROUGH YOUR PRECIOUS TENGIROTH, IS A TRIO OF UGLY LITTLE BRATS DEAD SET ON RUINING MY PLANS. WHAT DO YOU DO? PLEASE, TELL ME. WHAT DO YOU DO?"_ the Grandmaster Fanboy asked.

"Well, I was thinking we could implement Plan X." Toxie-dono replied shyly.

A chord of dramatic music blasted out of nowhere. It was actually Tengiroth's orchestra outside warming up, but pretend we didn't know that.

 _"PLAN X?"_ the Grandmaster Fanboy asked.

Another chord. Toxie-dono giggled, fluttering his eyelashes in joy at the very thought.

"Yeeeeaah, I know it's risky an' all, but ooh, can you just imagine how awesome it'd work if it did work? Rows an' rows of 'em, all shiny an' beautiful." Toxie-dono replied.

The Grandmaster Fanboy sighed.

 _"VERY WELL. I'LL IMPLEMENT PLAN X FOR YOU. BUT YOU LISTEN TO ME WELL, Toxie-DONO. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. I BROUGHT YOUR BEAUTIFUL PROBUS SELF INTO THIS WORLD AND I CAN TAKE IT RIGHT BACK OUT. ARE WE CLEAR?"_ the Grandmaster Fanboy asked.

Toxie-dono clapped her hands together excitedly.

"Crystal, honey, crystal." Toxie-dono replied.

* * *

Imagine the most evil, unscrupulous, sadistic, vicious, and cruel villain from any book, movie, video game, or TV show you'd like. Go ahead. Picture him or her very clearly in your head.

Add wings. Lots of wings. Three sets of wings. An angel's, a demon's, and a fairy's. Add one more wing that slipped in there by mistake, a shiny rainbow-colored feathery one that might be found on more exotic species of parrots.

Add leather. Lots of leather. Black leather. Yards and yards of it, tight and constricting, wrapping every inch of skin that isn't otherwise covered by chains and spikes.

Add hair. Lots of hair. Yards and yards of it, long and silky, all the way down to the floor and wrapped around the ankles three or four times, so long that it strangles poor innocent woodland creatures trying to scurry by it on their way home.

Add sparkles. And an unearthly evil glowing aura of darkness. Add a little rain cloud overhead that spews down a constant shower of blood and tears.

Add a 100-piece orchestra, a full choir, a pyrotechnics display and Nobuo Uematsu conducting.

You now have a vague inkling of Tengiroth's second form. Tengiroth Squared. Tengiroth Redux. Tengiroth Two: Electric Boogaloo.

"And now you shall learn, and you shall fear, and you shall learn to fear the wrath... of Tengiroth!" Tengiroth said maniacally.

"Tengiroth!" the choir with orchestral accompaniment sang.

Crumbelina sipped the last of her strawberry-banana smoothie and tossed the cup into a nearby trash bin, before standing up and stretching.

"Alright, girls, time to get down to business." Crumbelina said.

"Just like we discussed." Minty said.

"Deep concentration." Adorabeezle said.

Tengiroth laughed, drawing his seven-foot sword once again.

"Are you fools finally ready to face me down? We have battled before, but that was only warm-ups! You cannot comprehend my strength, and the strength you would have to have to defeat me! I will send all three of you into the darkness of oblivion where you belong!" Tengiroth said.

"We'll see." Crumbelina said. She glanced at Minty and Adorabeezle and asked "Let's attempt Maneuver 34, shall we?".

"Let's." Adorabeezle replied.

Minty slammed her fists down onto the ground, and the entire courtyard began to rumble from the force. The rumbling continued until the earth beneath them seemed to be boiling and churning, ripping through the grass and giving rise to a thick layer of sand, rocks, and stones. Crumbelina lifted one of her arms to the sky and a great cyclone of caramel dust churned, round and round, drawing leaves from the nearby trees into it's roaring grip and soon lifting the sand and rocks as well. Adorabeezle knelt down and placed her hands against the ground. The vortex soon became a sugary sandstorm, spinning wildly out of control and lifting high up towards the sky, a mighty testament to the abilities of the two Sugar Rushers. Tengiroth laughed.

"Pitiful. You expect me to be held back by something so foolish as a sandstorm? I will cleave your pathetic sandstorm in HALF and you will learn to fear Tengiroth!" Tengiroth said tauntingly.

"Tengiroth!" the choir with orchestral accompaniment sang.

Tengiroth flapped all seven wings and lifted himself high up into the air, almost as high as the sugary sandstorm reached, and began to focus his energy. He lifted his sword up behind him and prepared a mighty lunge, waiting until his choir got to the most dramatic part of the song to do so.

"Get ready." Minty said.

Crumbelina nodded, still busily keeping the cyclone at it's most turbulent.

Suddenly, Tengiroth did a triple twister backflip back handspring, circled in the air, and came soaring down like a hawk, all the way down to the ground and effortlessly slicing straight through the sandstorm. Chunks of rock and earth and a gust of caramel flew out in all directions as the storm came crashing down all over the courtyard in a dramatic whoosh. Tengiroth struck a pose in midair, cackling maniacally as his storm cloud rained blood all around and his choir kicked it into overdrive, as it was time for the techno remix.

"You stupid foolish fools! You foolishly thought you could fool Tengiroth, you fools? So much for your precious Maneuver 34! I will now tear you asunder!" Tengiroth said.

He spun around to take a mighty chop out of the three girls with his giant sword, but found, for some reason, that his head could not spin as gracefully and threateningly as before. He jerked his head as hard as he could to the side and quickly found out why when there came the sound of a huge "CLNK!", followed by a thud.

All nine or so feet of Tengiroth's luxurious locks of silver hair laid frozen in a chunk of ice on the ground beneath him. In the ten or so seconds of posing and threats since he landed from his mighty demonstration against Crumbelina and Minty's sugary sandstorm, Adorabeezle had made her move and promptly froze the Probus's hair into a long block of ice. The unfortunate thing about Probus locks is that as intimidating as they are, they are not immune to the weaknesses of regular hair, and that includes the weakness that is proneness for snapping when frozen into a solid block of ice and subjected to a firm jerking of the head. Tengiroth stared in abject horror at his locks upon the ground and then up at the three Sugar Rushers that were responsible.

"MY HAIR!" Tengiroth screamed. He fell immediately to the ground on his knees, clutched the broken strands in his hands, and shrieked "NO! NO! IT CAN'T BE! Not... say it... say it ain't so... it can't be this is... this is a bad dream, it must be! A terrible, terrible, horrible dream!".

"Tengiroth!" the choir sang.

"NO! NO! SHUT IT, YOU IDIOTS! CAN'T YOU SEE THIS IS AN EMERGENCY? MY HAIR! IT'S RUINED!" Tengiroth shrieked in rage.

"Good shot, Adorabeezle." Crumbelina said, catching her breath after the strain of holding the cyclone for so long.

Adorabeezle looked very proud of herself.

"Thank you, Crumbelina." Adorabeezle said.

"I didn't really think he would get so worked up about his hair. It's almost a little... sad." Minty said as they watched a sobbing Tengiroth trying as hard as he could to reattach the nine-foot mass back to his head.

Crumbelina rolled her eyes.

"Terribly." Crumbelina said.

"LOOK AT ME! I'M HIDEOUS! LOOK! I AM NO SILENT WIND OF DOOM IN THIS! I AM NOTHING TO BE FEARED OR EVEN REMOTELY NERVOUS OF... with this... short... hair." Tengiroth howled, standing up and clawing at the back of his head.

"Oh no. We're not frightened of you at all. Long hair, oh yes, perhaps, but that terrible crew-cut you have now?" Adorabeezle enunciated.

"I must end my shame." Tengiroth said numbly, turning his blade on himself to commit seppuku.

Unfortunately, a seven-foot long katana, while certainly intimidating, is just not all that practical for seppuku. What followed was a ten minute display of Tengiroth trying in vain to impale himself on a sword that was taller than he was, in full view of his choir and Nobuo Uematsu. Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle looked on from nearby, terribly amused. It appeared he would be busy for a very long time.

"Well, after that anti-climactic display, my vote is that we head inside to deal with Sylvia's Seme." Minty said.

"A very good suggestion. Let's be on our..." Crumbelina started to say.

She paused as there was suddenly a flash of light that brought a new silhouette down into the courtyard.

"What the heck is that?" Crumbelina asked.

The glow around the silhouette dissipated and the newcomer slowly stood up, holding up his hand to reveal a sparkling golden Keyblade.

"A Keyblade?" Adorabeezle asked nervously, taking a few steps back for caution's sake.

The newcomer lifted his head to reveal sparkling white teeth, a heroic grin, and the Probus tattoo that had only seconds ago appeared on his torso.

"That's right. My name is Kayn Yorobaka." the newcomer said.

A second silhouette flashed down and landed in the hedges.

"My name is Saangi Magvel!" the second silhouette

"Suki Wasiwasi!" a third silhouette yelled from the doorway of the garden shed.

"Payra Hahibaba!" a fourth silhouette shouted.

A cacophony of voices drowned out at least 400 other names, and soon there were 404 Keyblades lifting up into the air above them.

"AND AS THE KEYBEARER, I WILL DESTROY YOU!" 404 voices shouted.

On the top floor of the mansion, peering out a window, was Toxika's Seme, laughing hysterically at how beautiful the implementation of Plan X really was.

"Well, shoot." Crumbelina said.

She, Minty, and Adorabeezle were positioned back-to-back in the middle of the courtyard, keeping an eye on the advancing hoard of Keybearers.

"We'll just have to fight them off." Minty said.

"I'm exhausted from the cyclone. I need a chance to recover." Crumbelina said quickly.

"There's too many! And I don't care if they're actual Keybearers or not! On this world, they might as well be!" Adorabeezle hissed in frustration.

"We will not be giving up so easily! No racer ever says die!" Crumbelina snapped, breathing heavily to try and recover as quickly as she could.

"DIE! DIE, YOU FILTHY ANIMALS!" a voice yelled angrily.

There rose a sudden gasp among the Keybearers as suddenly great numbers of them began to explode into sizzling chunks for no readily apparent reason. Thunder and lightning rained from the heavens in great bursts, combusting groups of the hapless Keybearer Probus right and left.

"What the heck is that?" Adorabeezle asked.

"The last thing we need! Another Mary Sue?" Crumbelina asked.

"No, worse. It's Citrusella." Minty replied with a smirk, gesturing off towards the doorway of the mansion.

Indeed, Sugar Rush's blueberry racer was back to her usual self. She stood on the porch of the mansion, calling down great bolts of thunder and lightning, her face contorted into a look that could not be translated as anything else but pure straight seething hatred.

"THAT IDIOT DARE TO SCREW WITH ME, I'LL KICK YOUR BUTTS AND TAKE YOUR NAMES!" Citrusella shrieked, taking the opportunity to impale a few of the Probus nearest her with entire handfuls of lightning.

Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle watched in abject horror for a moment, musing over the brutality of the younger berry racer and wondering how she could have gotten over her episode as Voxwellizzers so quickly. They then decided that they were musing for another time, and proceeded to beat up every Probus within reach.

* * *

To make a long story short, in no time at all, the Keybearer army and Plan X had been laid to waste, and Citrusella reunited with her friends in the middle of the courtyard, taking the opportunity to fix her hair.

"Hello, girls. How's things?" Citrusella asked in the voice of a girl that had not just murdered about four hundred annoying teenagers.

"Significantly more violent all of the sudden." Crumbelina replied without missing a beat.

"What happened? How did you restore yourself? Voxwellizzers had taken your place by some means I don't even understand!" Adorabeezle asked in shock.

Citrusella shrugged.

"Oh, you mean that pod thing? I'm not sure. All I know is I woke up and suddenly here I am, back where I belong. Tell me you didn't actually think she had really replaced me." Citrusella replied.

"Of course not, Citrusella. We would never think of replacing you." Minty said.

"Good." Citrusella said. Her expression then darkened and she asked "I take it you three figured out what the hecks going on, right?".

"We certainly have, and we are in the process of repairing things as they should be. Hence our presence here. But we understand you took some measures of your own before your untimely capture, right?" Crumbelina asked.

"Darn right I did. I sure as heck aren't working with a bunch of sobbing pansies, I can tell you that much." Citrusella replied.

"How nice of you." Adorabeezle said icily.

"Sylvia's Seme is inside. We must destroy her and regain her matrix in order to replace it back within the real Sylvia's body." Minty said.

Citrusella smiled a positively evil smile, lacing her fingers together excitedly.

"Oh yes. I've got a bone to pick with her." Citrusella said.

* * *

Toxie-dono was in her basement laboratory, pacing back and forth and trying to figure out some way out of this scrape. Voxwellizzers had disappeared. Tengiroth was outside trying to impale himself. Plan X had failed miserably. The Grandmaster Fanboy was not returning her calls. And the choir and orchestra were demanding seven more per hour than originally agreed upon.

She fingered her limp stressed-out hair sadly and lamented the death of a fine crop of locks. She also lamented the fact that the woman who was the owner of those fine locks was also on the verge of death if she couldn't come up with a good idea real fast of how to deal with the three intruders. Stupid Voxwellizzers! Where was she when she needed her? All she ever had to do with that dunce was point and say that Swizzle would be very proud of her if she did such and such or had this or that done by whatever time that afternoon. There was just no kind of help quite like the gullible brainwashed and hired kind.

"Sylvia! Or rather, Toxie-dono!" a voice called out.

A long chill ran down Toxie-dono's spine as she heard the basement door slam open and swift footsteps down the stairs. It was nothing compared to the chill, however, when she turned around to find Citrusella facing her down as the three intruders watched from far away. The strong one was holding a glowing Tupperware dish for some reason Toxie-dono did not really want to contemplate. Citrusella smiled sweetly at her.

"It's been a while since we last spoke, hasn't it?" Citrusella asked.

Toxie-dono backed as far as she could against her lab equipment, becoming very pale.

"Wh-Why no! It must have been sooner than that, Ms. Citrusella! The time... it seems... way, way too short, honey." Toxie-dono replied.

"Oh, my thoughts exactly." Citrusella said as she stepped towards her.

With nowhere else to go, Toxie-dono hopped up on the table behind her, looking right and left for some opportunity to escape.

"Sister, let's talk this out all nice 'n gentle, mmkay?" Toxie-dono asked.

"Mm... no, I don't think so." Citrusella replied equally sweetly, electricity forming between each of her fingers.

Toxie-dono glanced behind Citrusella to Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle at the other side of the room.

"Oh, come ON! You sadistic brats would leave me to a fate like this?" Toxie-dono asked angrily.

"Can't say you don't particularly deserve it." Minty replied with a shrug.

"Meanie-pants. You! All three of you! Are MEANIE-PANTS! And homophobes!" Toxie-dono babbled incoherently as Citrusella made her slow approach.

All three of them sighed heavily. Crumbelina touched her forehead as though she was getting a major headache.

"We've been over that. Citrusella, if you would?" Crumbelina asked.

"I'd be happy to." Citrusella replied, tightening her fists.

"Oh please, not in the face." Toxie-dono said.

* * *

Several hours later, Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle were back aboard the S.R. Plight and once again drifting aimlessly through space on their way through Fandom Heights. The three girls were taking the time to relax before the next sanity-testing world. Citrusella had left the group and was on her way back to Sugar Rush as they spoke, with orders to keep an eye on things and assist Rancis in any picture-taking that needed to happen. They were certain she would be zealous and up to the task. On the bridge, Minty sat with the Tupperware, watching the two matrixes drifting aimlessly about within, occasionally bumping into each other and each emitting a soft and almost entrancing glow.

"That world was less horrifying than I expected it to be." Minty said.

"Indeed. It is not so much horrifying as it is annoying. Nine times out of ten, they come looking for the invocations of the people they know and love. It is frustrating to be constantly met with boring, trite, and unoriginal invocations of somebody's friends or even themselves. All the worse if said invocations are Mary Sues." Adorabeezle said.

"In the end, OC City is simply a world of wish fulfillment. There is nothing terribly wrong with wish fulfillment, after all. What many do not realize is that when they post their own wish-fulfillment publicly, it may not receive the warm welcome they are hoping as it is a very personal sort of thing. To go on to whining about it only make the genre as a whole more unbearable." Crumbelina said, sitting in a nearby chair with her feet propped up on an instrument panel.

"They may create whatever they like, of course. But they need to be prepared to face the facts and understand that what tickles their fancy and excites them may not apply to the thousands of others that their worlds affect... unlike the common factors of the real invocations of characters that draw them into Fandom Heights in the first place." Minty said.

"Well said." Adorabeezle said.

"Indeed." Crumbelina said.

The S.R. Plight drifted along through the cosmos on it's journey to the next world.


	12. The Third World

**Chapter 12: The Third World**

 _"Location: Litwak's Arcade, The World Of Disney, October 16th 2110"_

Back in Sugar Rush, Torvald just had to know what recipe Candlehead used to get her cookies crispy on the outside but chewy on the inside.

"Dudette, these are... dare I say it... the best things I have ever tasted?" Torvald asked enthusiastically, taking a nip from the side of her fourth cookie and happily adjusting her sun hat with pink and purple flowers on the brim.

Candlehead blushed and giggled like a schoolgirl, doing a little twirl in her flower apron.

"Oh you know a little ginger, a little cinnamon. My granny passed me this recipe in her cookbook." Candlehead replied.

Gloyd tittered girlishly, pawing at the sparkly earrings he had found.

"Oh pshaw, Mrs. Cranshaw, don't be so modest! More tea, Mrs. Nesbitt?" Gloyd asked.

Toxika squealed and bounced in her seat.

"Please and thank you, Mrs. Wong! There's jasmine in this batch!" Toxika replied.

"Do you think this arrangement needs a few more daisies in it, Mrs. Nesbitt? Really, be honest!" Taffyta asked with deep concern.

"Oh no, Mrs. Tremain, it looks faaaaaaabulous! Mmm! Hit me with another spot of sugar, would you, love?" Toxika asked between sips.

"Right awaaaaaay!" Vanellope replied. She pit down her blush and mascara, and said "Ooh, perk up there, Mrs. Bloodmoon! The banana bread'll be done in only a few minutes!".

Swizzle sighed longingly.

"Oh, I hope so, Mrs. DeVille. I'm so hungry." Swizzle said.

"Ladies! Look what I found in my closet!" Citrusella said suddenly from the doorway, running into the racer's lounge with a stack of silky dresses in all the colors of the rainbow.

Candlehead gasped.

"Oh, those old things? And retro is so totally chic this year!" Candlehead said.

Toxika cooed with pleasure.

"Mmm, is that silk?" Toxika asked.

"Oh yeah, look at that lovely mint green and pink polka-dotted one, Sylvia. It would look soooo good on you!" Citrusella replied.

"Hey, HEY! Don't break character, Cit-Cit! I am Missus Nesbitt!" Toxika suddenly snapped, glaring up at Citrusella.

Though the initial disgust at being called "Cit-Cit" was apparent on her face, Citrusella managed to shift into a cool sweet smile at her insistence.

"Right, right. I apologize, Mrs. Nesbitt." Citrusella said.

Gloyd hopped from foot to foot.

"Um, um, um, c-can we maybe try them on, Cit-Cit?" Gloyd asked.

Torvald leaped from her seat, stomping her feet excitedly and pointing.

"Ooh, yeah, that red one would look absolutely ravishing with my hat, dudette!" Torvald added.

"Oh my gosh, you should totally try it on, Mrs. Andrzjewski! You all can! In fact, I insist!" Citrusella said excitedly.

"YAY!" everyone shouted.

Citrusella dropped the stack of dresses on the table and stepped back as the other racer set upon them like a pack of screeching women buying wedding dresses at a 70% off clearance sale.

"Now, ladies, don't rip them! You want them all nice and pretty for the picture!" Citrusella said.

"Don't worry, honey, we're totally gonna play nice!" Taffyta said.

"AWMIGAWD, the banana bread!" Candlehead shrieked suddenly.

She leaped for the oven. Citrusella leaned against the wall smugly, crossing her arms and relishing the scene.

"You utter little cavity." a droll voice said.

Citrusella shrugged casually.

"What? It's called being 'opportunistic'." Citrusella said.

Rancis shook his head as he stood nearby with the other Sugar Rush members that hadn't been affected by the Probus, traces of laughter on his face regardless.

"If there's a hell for people like us, I hope you know you're going straight to it." Citrusella said.

Citrusella stared at him and raised her eyebrow with a huff.

"I'll meet you there. What do you call that?" Citrusella asked.

"What, this? It's called being absolutely hilarious." Rancis replied, while holding a video camera on his shoulder.

* * *

 _"Location: Fandom Heights, October 16th 2110"_

Meanwhile, the S.R. Plight had reached the next world and Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle had disembarked.

Unfortunately, as the EXON Engines propelled them downwards and into the world's atmosphere, they were suddenly met with a great deal of turbulence, as was the nature of the world. Getting into this world was really the hard part, they discovered. A cheerful sign posted above it proudly proclaimed the fact, as it read _"WELCOME! 9,001 FAILURES TODAY!:"_. Success in this twisted and unusual world rested on a smooth and logical entry, which the three females unfortunately failed to pull off.

Before Minty knew it, she was lying flat on her back on the ground, staring up at the sky and reeling from the after-effects of the EXON Engine's failure. It took her a few minutes to find her bearings after the rough landing, and she slowly sat up and rubbed her head, glancing around at her surroundings. The first thing she noticed was that he was in the countryside, on the border of some lush forest and a wide open meadowland, covered in tall grasses, swishing flowers, and a scenic little river that twisted and bent across the landscape. She reached back behind her for the world guidebook she had been keeping, only to find that it had vanished. She realized she must have left it back on the ship by mistake.

The next thing she noticed was that she was alone. Crumbelina and Adorabeezle were nowhere to be found, and there were no craters like the one she had created on entry anywhere nearby. The turbulence must have separated them from one another. Ah well, Minty shrugged. The two would be around somewhere, and it wasn't like any of the three couldn't take care of themselves. She was certainly alright on her own. Crumbelina had caramel powers for crying out loud, and she could take on a small army of Probus by herself. And Adorabeezle sometimes had a bit of trouble controlling her temper when left to her own devices, but lucky for her, "her own devices" usually involved lots of pain and maiming for the ones who crossed her.

Conveniently for Minty, there happened to be a road not far from where she had impacted, and not too far up the road there was a road sign. She took a final look around at her surroundings, and then carefully stepped over some endangered flora specimens and onto the road, making her way over. At least, that's what she planned to do, until she was startled by the feeling of some sharp object embedding itself in the sole of her left boot. Minty lifted his foot and reached down to dislodge whatever it was to have been sturdy enough to have sunk down through a full inch and a half of her boots. She lifted it up and examined it between two fingers to see that it was some broken piece of something. It looked like a shard of glass or crystal, not too terribly interesting. Probably just a piece of something somebody dropped and forgot to clean up. Suddenly, there sounded a growling voice behind her.

"Hold it, buddy! Hand over the jewel shard and I won't cleave you to bits!" the voice ordered.

Minty had an awful sinking feeling as she realized exactly what sort of world she had just landed on.

"If there is any sort of deific presence out there looking out for me, please let me have landed anywhere but..." Minty started to say in a calm but very serious voice.

She slowly turned around to see a young man with big red pants, dog ears, and a hip-length shock of impossibly poofy white hair.

"Hey! Didn't you hear me? I said hand over the jewel shard!" the man snapped, pointing a clawed finger and hefting a tremendous sword.

Minty's face met the palm of her hand.

"Inuyasha." Minty muttered.

Inuyasha grinned smugly, throwing his sword back to rest on his shoulder.

"I see you've heard of me! Now hand over the jewel shard and I won't have to kill you!" Inuyasha ordered.

"Okay, fine." Minty said.

She pulled the jewel shard back out of her pocket, and without hesitation, tossed it across the way to land at the half-demon's feet. Inuyasha stared at the shard, then back up at the girl, then down at the shard again, and then back to Minty.

"Wait, you're just... giving me the shard?" Inuyasha asked.

Minty raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. You asked for it." Minty replied.

"But you're the bad guy. You're supposed to take the jewel shard and run off with it." Inuyasha said.

"Why would I?" Minty asked.

"Because... you're the bad guy. You're supposed to laugh in my face about losing the shard, and then run off with it and use it in your evil plans." Inuyasha replied, apparently baffled by Minty's unwillingness to start trouble.

"And how would I use such a ridiculous thing in any sort of evil plans?" Minty asked.

"Well, it's a shard of the Shikon Jewel! Everybody wants the Shikon Jewel." Inuyasha replied.

"I don't." Minty said.

"Why not?" Inuyasha asked, almost looking insulted.

"Because I've never heard of it and I don't know what it does. I assume from your reaction that it has some sort of supernatural properties to it, and there are a lot of people who would go out of their way to get a hold of it. Do you often have a problem of strangers and off-worlders appearing and trying to snatch it away from you for their own ends?" Minty asked.

"Heck yes. Over a hundred and sixty episodes' worth." Inuyasha replied.

"Good grief. You used that hackneyed plot for that long?" Minty asked.

She knew she had misspoken when she suddenly felt the glares of the half-demon before her as well as his hordes of adoring fans, all the way through their computer monitors and transcending across the very boundaries of reality.

"You did not just go there." Inuyasha replied accusatorily.

Minty shrugged it off.

"I rather think I did." Minty said.

"Well, don't rag on me about repetitive plotlines. It worked for Dragonball Z." Inuyasha said with a huff.

He suddenly had the very same feeling that somewhere out there, people were loathing him for insulting a cartoon.

"Did I just go there?" Inuyasha asked.

"I rather think you did. But in any case, today is your lucky day, as I don't consider myself the type to run around and cause trouble for people without any good reason, particularly in the name of an artifact I don't know anything about and don't particularly desire." Minty replied.

Inuyasha's face turned almost as pale as his hair as he stepped out, utterly ignoring the jewel shard that had landed by his feet.

"No, no. You don't understand. You have to go for the jewel." Inuyasha said.

"No, I don't." Minty said, turning her head back towards the signpost.

"No, you don't understand!" Inuyasha said.

The feeling of something small and sharp bouncing off her shoulder had Minty pause and glance back. Inuyasha had chucked the shard at her and was backing away from her, his hands tightening around the handle of his sword.

"You have to go for the jewel. Or I'm dead meat." Inuyasha said.

"Why?" Minty asked.

Inuyasha swallowed heavily, his eyes darting shiftily around as though looking for some shape in the shadows of the woods.

"Because he wouldn't like that." Inuyasha replied.

"'He'?" Minty asked.

Inuyasha was positively trembling in his shoes... or would have been, if he wore any shoes.

"Yes... he would be furious. He insists that we follow the plotlines exactly as specified... w-we can't stray off of 'em or anything... and h-he'll deal with me if I don't do as he says. He rules this world." Inuyasha replied.

And what, precisely, is this world?" Minty asked impatiently.

Inuyasha motioned to the signpost with a trembling finger. It appeared to be a mile marker sign for a variety of locations, but the arrows had been mostly broken off, except for the one on the top.

 **Adroit Crossings**

Minty continued studying the sign, intuition directing her to an arrow that read _"Toontown"_ and another that read _"Raven's Moon Manor"_.

"Well, I apologize for being unable to help you with your problem, but I have no desire to take your little jewel piece. You'll have to find somebody else to..." Minty started to say.

She was interrupted as she stepped on another important plot device about as large as a medium-sized jawbreaker. She lifted her foot and glanced down at the road to see a glistening red stone. Against her better judgment, she reached down to pick it up, only to hear a new low-to-the-ground voice from behind her.

"Okay, ugly! You better give me that Philosopher's Stone, right this instant!" the voice ordered.

Minty groaned.

* * *

Luckily for Crumbelina, she was not having the same sort of problems as Minty. However, she had also landed in an extremely different sort of environment than her friend.

She found herself wandering through an altogether miserable bleak desolate stretch of trashy abandoned buildings. The rain-soaked cobblestone streets were cracked and broken, and weak fires roared in trashcans on the street corners, guarded by forlorn-looking locals in tattered jackets with torn umbrellas. A dilapidated sign was on the side of one of the buildings.

 _"Welcome to Toontown."_ the sign read.

Any other person would have been baffled to find the inhabitants of this dreary slum to be part of an alternate representation of a world they knew and had visited before, and contained a wider variety of anthropomorphic cartoon animals and people, but this is a member of Sugar Rush we're talking about. "Be Prepared", remember? Not to mention, Crumbelina was quite used to writing off the appearances of animated creatures. She had often played poker with Gene, Percival C. McLeach, Clayton, Eugene Krabs, and Mickey. The mouse still owed her fifty dollars.

Unfortunately, it did not look like the town as a whole possessed even fifty dollars. Both recognizable and unrecognizable cartoon inhabitants did not look at all their usual cheery selves, as they just sat around, walked with their heads down low, and were dressed in little more than rags and doing whatever they could to scrape together enough to buy food or find a place to sleep for the night. Crumbelina surveyed the sights around her as she walked, off-handedly wondering where Minty and Adorabeezle had gotten off to. Fortunately, she had grabbed the guidebook from the ship before their impromptu departure, and was strolling around to see if she could get the computer to detect any Sugar Rusher's signals, such as Adorabeezle's, Minty's, or otherwise.

A large group of animals (the four-legged variety) had gathered in one of the alleys. There were mutts, cocker spaniels, basset hounds, afghan hounds, Chihuahuas, Great Danes, Dalmatians, a fox, and cats in all variety of colors from black to white to orange and striped and in between. They sat, staring forlornly at passersby with sad animal eyes in the hopes of snagging some scraps from someone with a big heart. Near the end of Twilight Blvd sat a broken-down llama with a sign around it's neck, reading _"Llama Milk: $10 a Cup"_.

"Kuzco, you can't get milk from a male llama." a nearby man said.

The llama looked horrified.

"You can't? NOOHOHOHO! My lucrative business!" Kuzco cried.

A young woman dressed in rags was doing her best to sweep the cobwebs from the porch of one of the broken-down houses, which appeared to have an obscene pest problem. Bugs seemed to have built an entire city outside it and the mice were so settled in they were developing an advanced society, complete with clothing. Crowds of animals stood around burning trashcans to warm themselves, while a rooster with a lute strummed nearby and tried to cheer them up with a depressing song about downs outnumbering the ups. A badger stood at a podium, preaching a sermon. Children in filthy pajamas dug through stacks of garbage, salvaging what they could of abandoned toys.

"What a dreadful little town." Crumbelina said to no one in particular.

"Oh yes, I agree." a voice said.

The voice belonged to a white rabbit in slacks tugging at his coat. Crumbelina glanced down at the ridiculous creature, taking his coat in one hand and tugging it back away.

"Do you mind?" Crumbelina asked.

The rabbit grinned.

"Not at all! You are new in town, right?" the rabbit asked.

"Just passing through." Crumbelina replied.

The rabbit ran to keep up with Crumbelina, who had gained a bead on a suspicious signal a few blocks away.

"Well, everybody always thinks they are. But everybody that comes to Toontown always stays forever." the rabbit said.

"I've heard of and been to Toontown. It's a much nicer place than this." Crumbelina said.

"Not in Adroit Crossings! This world's different. It's a big mishmash of all sorts'a worlds, see, and in the old days, every time there was a new invocation, we Toons would star in it! But not anymore. We haven't had work in ages!" the rabbit said.

"That's unfortunate." Crumbelina said.

"You're tellin' me! The overlords keep connectin' new worlds, 'cept all the new worlds get all the work, and we're stuck here eating beans and begging for change! On that note... can I interest you in some insurance?" the rabbit asked.

Crumbelina glanced down and noticed a tattered clipboard in the rabbit's yellow-gloved hands.

"Insurance? Whatever for?" Crumbelina asked.

"It's 'getting the stuffing kicked outta you' insurance! A hundred dollars a policy! Then I give you this nice piece of paper!" the rabbit replied proudly.

He held up a piece of newsprint with "INCHOORANTS" written at the top in lipstick. "Roger Rabbit, esq." was written at the bottom in what appeared to be eyeliner.

"And how will a piece of paper protect me from getting the stuffing kicked out of me?" Crumbelina asked.

Roger shrugged.

"Well... I dunno, but it doesn't hurt to try! Can I set you up for double coverage perhaps, miss?" Roger asked.

Crumbelina laughed somewhat haughtily.

"I'd like to see anyone try to kick the stuffing out of me. I'm not interested." Crumbelina replied.

She motioned as to step forward and be on her way, but stopped as Roger flung himself at her feet, sobbing.

"PBBBBBREEEEEASE, MISS! I need the money! If I can't pay for food this week, my wife Jessica has to go out and charge people for Pattycake! And if I don't sell any policies today, Mr. Lloyd's gonna... gonna..." Roger started to plead.

Crumbelina finally stopped, staring down at the rabbit in shock.

"Mr. Lloyd?" Crumbelina asked.

"Yeah... the big jerk that runs this town." a new voice replied.

A small goose child that had red pigtails and wore a sandwich board sign advertising Gosalyn Mallard's Maps and Travel information, $10 For Consultation, stood nearby.

"He's always down here kicking the stuffing out of us if we make him mad." Gosalyn said.

"You oughta be glad you don't work for him!" Roger said.

"My dad's had the stuffing kicked out of him a million times. Maps and travel information, buddy?" Gosalyn asked proudly.

Roger stood up angrily.

"Hey, back off! I saw her first! Go peddle your business over there!" Roger snapped.

Gosalyn's eyes watered miserably and she sniffled.

"Would you deny an innocent little girl the money she needs to bust her dad out of jail... again?" Gosalyn asked.

"I'll pay both of you to leave me alone, if you tell me more about this Mr. Lloyd." Crumbelina replied.

The goose and the rabbit stared in wonderment at the woman, before bursting out into a babbling screaming match.

"Mr. Lloyd spends his Wednesdays down at the Ink and Paint Club." Gosalyn said.

"He lives up in the castle up north with his colleague." Roger said.

"But he only comes here to kick the stuffing out of people and he keeps threatening to ruin our characters." Gosalyn said.

"YEAH, YEAH, they ruin our characters. They've got this big awful machine." Roger said.

"It's not a machine, it's like a ray gun!" Gosalyn said.

"No, no, there's no ray gun! It's smaller! It's more like... like a remote control!" a mouse in a red hat near the ground said.

"No, Bernard, I really saw it as more of a charm or jewel." a second mouse in a purple hat said.

A green parrot with a cigar approached, shaking his head.

"No, señora, they say it is their natural power! All you have to do is anger them and..." the parrot started to say.

"We haven't seen Aunt Daisy for weeks!" three small ducks yelled at the same time.

"They make living life here absolutely miserable!" a short man in glasses and a weird hat shouted from a gathering crowd.

"YEAH!" five of his friends added as one in the back fell over.

"They're a bother." a stuffed bear said sadly.

"Are you here to save us?" a skinny dark-haired boy in a red loincloth asked excitedly.

"No, I'm not here to..." Crumbelina started to reply.

"She's here to save us!" the children shouted.

"HURRAY! THREE CHEERS FOR... what was her name?" the crowd asked.

"Crumbelina." Crumbelina replied, bewildered.

"THREE CHEERS FOR CRUMBELINA!" the crowd cheered.

Hearing people cheer her name wasn't so bad, Crumbelina thought to herself, as the Toons around her screamed and cried and hugged each other in joy. In fact, it was something that she could get used to again... on her own time, not when she should have been off rescuing the rest of her fallen friends and finding out where Minty and Adorabeezle had gotten off to. She glanced at her watch and waited for a pause to ask that she please be excused so she could keep chasing the signal in the computer. It wasn't until some quiet drumbeats in the background began to get louder that she began to look noticeably uncomfortable.

"What are you doing?" Crumbelina asked.

Roger grinned.

"Oh, it's customary around these parts, miss." Roger replied.

 _Oh, the worlds will sing of a Sugar Rusher a thousand years from now!_

 _While the evil ones up north keep all us Toons down on our knees,_

 _The great..._

"NO!" Crumbelina yelled angrily.

The music screeched to a halt and Crumbelina spun around, pointing and gesturing madly in some kind of enraged frenzy.

"No singing! There will be no singing while I am here! Is that understood?" Crumbelina asked.

"No... no singing?" the Toons asked.

"Absolutely no singing, or I am going instantly back to my ship and leaving you all to wallow in squalor!" Crumbelina replied angrily.

"Sorry!" the crowd said.

"Now, please do excuse me. I am going to find my friends so we can figure out what to do about this Lloyd fellow." Crumbelina said, motioning for the crowd to part and let her on her way.

She headed on her way further down the street, intensely watching the beeping signal in the back of the guidebook that indicated the presence of a Seme. A Sugar Rusher's signal was starting to register too. A wide smile spread on Crumbelina's lips and she picked up the pace.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a distant Toontown back alley, two unfortunate Toons were getting the stuffing kicked out of them.

"Y'all come 'round here thinkin' y'all can walk peacefully an' all nice-like, HUH?" a cruel voice asked, most likely belonging to the dark shadow looming across the alley.

Bonkers T. Bobcat sobbed from the corner, cowering under his arms to protect himself from further vicious kicks from the assailant's very nice black and silver Bling-o-rama™ brand Platform Kickin' Shoes.

"NO, SIR! We have no right to walk peacefully and nice-like!" Bonkers replied.

"YEEEAHYUH! Y'all wanna 'nother round? Cuz' there's plenty more where that came from, HUH? HUH?" the figure asked.

"YES SIR! We would love another round! We'd be honored!" Tummi Gummi replied woozily from his face-down position on the bricks.

"Well now, lemme think..." the figure started to say.

The prose camera panned up from the platforms, up the zebra-striped bellbottom pants and past the orange velvet ruffly shirt, past the floor-length mink fur coat, past the twenty bulky silver and gold and diamond necklaces, and past the exceptionally long feather on the pimp hat to where Gloyd's Seme was carefully preening his goatee with a few fingers. He grinned slightly and suddenly screamed.

"TOO BAD! As much as he'd love to show you wankstas a little more've his Kickin' Shoes, Homie G Lloyd just got a ring-a-ling from his Burger King all up in HEEEEEEEAUHH!" the figure said.

Lloyd cackled and took a few steps back, glancing at his pager flashing and playing that stupid Gold Digger song that no radio station in America could stop playing for five minutes.

"Up in what?" Bonkers asked, raising his head slightly.

"'Here'." Tummi replied.

He was greeted with another cruel kick to the backside as Lloyd laughed himself senseless.

"HUUUWHAT y'all jabberin' about? Y'all gonna miss me? HUH? HUH?" Lloyd asked.

"YES, SIR!" both Toons replied, covering their eyes to shield them from the blinding glint of the bling.

Lloyd tossed his head and took a few steps backwards, presenting a mockingly polite bow of courtesy.

"Tha's what Lloyd likes to hear! YEEEAAAAYUH! Well, s'been real, y'all, but HOMIE G LLOYD'S gotta be gettin' on 'is way now, YEEEAAAAAYUH!" Lloyd said.

He let out a jubilant shriek and promptly vanished into a portal, leaving bear and bobcat alone in the alley to gather their stuffing.

"Boy, I didn't think we really deserved that." Tummi said with a dejected sigh.

"Oh, who ever does anymore? This world's really gone to the dogs. The premises are stupid, the anime's run itself redundant, and Toontown's completely neglected. And to make matters worse, when we do get out and about, we poor Toons can't walk down the street without being savaged brutally!" Bonkers wailed, throwing a hand over his eyes dramatically.


	13. The Dark Castle

**Chapter 13: The Dark Castle**

 _Note: Taffyta's Seme's appearance is owned by Mangle6._

* * *

It was a dark and stormy night at Castle Raven's Moon Manor. Then again, it usually was. The castle that housed Adroit Crossing's pair of evil overlords was stereotypically far to the north of Toontown, past the Woods of Overused Anime, beyond the Plains of Ill-Meshing Genres and Premises, and thankfully far from the often-abused Harry Potter Canyon. It was a gothic sort of building, with spikes, gargoyles, and black stone comprising much of the architecture. What was not made of stone was made of moody tarnished gold and rubies, and what was not made of moody tarnished gold and rubies was made of blood-red velvet.

The one who'd called Homie G Lloyd and spared the hapless cop and gummi bear from their merciless beating was none other than the Seme's partner-in-crime, the mistress of Castle Raven's Moon Manor (by merit of a coin flip). She was a cruel, shady, and altogether broody soul, a Probus who rather than spending her days traipsing about kicking the stuffing out of Toons, preferred to spend them locked up within the walls of her castle.

Now, you may be tempted to think that perhaps, due to her solitary nature, the castle's mistress was somehow a less unpleasant character than her friend Lloyd. Nothing could be further from the truth. She was every bit as obnoxious, sadistic, and cruel as her partner.

There were many things to do in the castle that could still give her as nasty a reputation as her colleague, such as staring moodily down off of balconies, for instance. She took some time every day to work on her penmanship, writing threatening notes to her clients in blood red ink and stamping them with a skull-shaped seal. She was rather fond of playing the pipe organ. And she was widely regarded as a connoisseur of red wine, Bloody Marys, V8, Clamato, cherry Kool-Aid, and any sort of beverage that gave the appearance of blood.

Her favorite pastime, however, was staring longingly at the moon, clad in a black dress with sparkling sequence and running her hands through her intricately styled Halloween orange hair.

Her name was Tabitha Darkrose. And tonight, she had a big unsettling smile on her face.

The smile persisted as Lloyd arrived from his portal, sticking a dramatic landing on the stone floor by posing with his pimp-cane.

"Yo-yo, Tabitha mah homie, what y'all... HOSNAP!" Lloyd asked.

"Lloyd, whatever is the matter?" Tabitha asked, for lack of a better word "gliding" across the room to meet him.

Lloyd's face twitched slightly. When Tabitha smiled, it was not a good thing.

"Y'all ain't s'pposed t' smile, homeslice. HUUWHAT y'all be smokin'?" Lloyd asked.

"I have not been smoking anything, my friend. But fortune has smiled down upon us this evening, after such unhappy news from the Superior earlier today regarding the deaths of our brethren." Tabitha replied dreamily, glancing back through the stained glass window at the full bright moon.

Lloyd strutted into the room, cracking his knuckles and plopping down for a seat in an overstuffed red velvet armchair. He tossed his hat to the side, hanging it on a bust.

"Wassup?" Lloyd asked.

The corner's of Tabitha mouth curled around pointed teeth.

"We are blessed with the presence of a very special guest. And the Superior and the Grandmaster Fanboy have requested we deal with her in a very special manner." Tabitha replied.

"YEEEAAYUH! Y'all waited t' do the honors now, ain't ya? Wouldn't leave y'all homeslice out've it, HUH? HUH?" Lloyd asked happily.

"Certainly not. That is why I called you up here. We shouldn't keep our special guest waiting. It would be terribly rude of us, as hosts, not to introduce ourselves as soon as possible." Tabitha replied.

"YEEEAAYUH!" Lloyd said, throwing what he thought were gang signs but were actually Paper-Rock-Scissors gestures.

* * *

A northern road out of Toontown led Crumbelina to an ominous-looking crossroads, and that's where she ran into Minty, who was moving at a rather rapid pace as though on the run from something. Crumbelina smiled, and the guidebook's signal bleeped and faded out, confirming her presence.

"Minty! Good, I was hoping I'd find you after not too long. Were you injured in the crash?" Crumbelina asked.

"Good to see you as well, and I'm fine, thank you. Where's Adorabeezle?" Minty asked, slightly out of breath.

Crumbelina frowned.

"I thought she might be with you." Crumbelina replied.

Minty shook her head and bit her lip.

"No, I was by myself when I landed. I wonder what's become of her. I hope she isn't dead." Minty said.

Crumbelina waved her off casually.

"Of course she's not dead. What do you think this is, an episode of Fullmetal Alchemist?" Crumbelina asked.

"Ouch. Did you just go there?" Minty asked.

"I rather think I did." Crumbelina replied.

Minty sighed.

"Well, you're right. She can surely take care of herself. This world is..." Minty started to say.

"Annoying, mostly, but nothing too horribly treacherous. Yet, I just spent the last half an hour being worshiped by a swarm of overzealous cartoon characters." Crumbelina said.

"Hmm, I would trade places with you happily." Minty said.

"Why's that?" Crumbelina asked.

"I just spent the last half an hour running from them." Minty replied.

She motioned over her shoulder to the hill just beyond the road, where a veritable army of anime characters were surging after her, weapons raised overhead and malice and misplaced righteousness in their eyes. Like the Scottish armies of William Wallace, they came tearing over the hillside, screaming at the top of their lungs, waving arms overhead, and occasionally chibifying just to lower the guard of their intended target.

"Whoa. They're persistent." Crumbelina said.

Minty motioned for her to join her in a brisk run in the opposite direction.

"Each and every one of them are convinced I ought to be stealing their precious artifacts or otherwise mucking up their lives, exactly as an episode of their usual adventures would go." Minty explained.

Crumbelina rolled her eyes as they ran.

"Mmph, I suppose we shouldn't have expected too much from Fandom Heights." Crumbelina said.

Minty groaned.

"Can't they at least come up with a few original ideas? Honestly, I ran into ten or twenty copies of the same characters just in the span of a few minutes!" Minty asked.

"A shame, but onto more important things. We've got to find Adorabeezle, and I've got two Seme signals coming in." Crumbelina replied.

Minty's lip curled in distaste.

"Two of them? From what direction?" Minty asked.

"North." Crumbelina replied.

"There's supposedly a castle up north. I was going to head there if I failed to find either you or Adorabeezle." Minty said.

"Yes, and the Toons mentioned a pair of evil overlords ruling the world from a castle in the north. I think it's a safe bet that these evil overlords are little more than the lost matrixes of our comrades, manifested into creepy pseudo-beings and on a quest for universal domination." Crumbelina said.

Minty sighed heavily.

"It just sounds stranger and stranger the more times we hear the whole story." Minty said.

* * *

By now, you are all probably wondering what, indeed, happened to Adorabeezle. It's a rather long and funny story, unless, of course, you happen to be Adorabeezle herself. In which case, it is not funny in the least, and anybody who laughs at it is sadistic and will someday die by her very hands. Read the following recap with caution.

Adorabeezle, due to some freakish twist of physics perhaps caused by her lovely features, was hurled off in a separate direction from her colleagues mid-crash. She landed far to the north of both of them, right in the middle of a vast canyon housing a familiar castle normally seen in Scotland. When Adorabeezle awoke, she was in the middle of some type of athletic field crowded around by a sea of British private schoolchildren dressed in gaudily colored robes. Several of them looked oddly-out of place from how you would usually picture this particular group of British private schoolchildren, as silver and gravity-defying brown-spiked hair was not a usual occurrence in the British private school we know of from our universe. Adorabeezle knew something was really out of the ordinary when the students all insisted that she was a professor, and begged her to get back to the dungeon to teach them potions.

She had heard about these people.

Fleeing and getting the heck out of the canyon as fast as her legs, snow beast form's speed, and portal key could carry her, she found herself lost in a vast wasteland full of the fragments of shattered and forgotten worlds, forcibly implemented into Adroit Crossings by the evil overlords to the north. After what seemed like hours upon hours of encountering Care Bears, more whiny and hapless teenagers than Litwak Niceland Rush High School Academy Grammar School could ever hope to house, obnoxious children wielding electric rats and card games and fighting tops and digital electric rats and phantasmal powers and magical planet powers and dinosaur fairies and magic sketchbooks and any number of silly things, Twilight novels, Broadway musicals, television gourmet chefs, television lawyer shows, reality shows, fast food advertisement personalities, Mii Babies, terrifying creatures with televisions in their stomachs, terrifying creatures with beady eyes and no mouths and hypnotic brainwashing dances, pop singers, boy bands, pop singers who solved mysteries, boy bands who solved mysteries, rappers, rappers who solved mysteries about pop singers and boy bands, ChromxSumia lovers, RobinxLucina lovers, and CorrinxAzura lovers, Adorabeezle collapsed from exhaustion in the middle of nowhere, praying to any merciful deity at all for the sweet deliverance of sudden death.

Fortunately for Adorabeezle (though against her immediate wishes), she was rescued a short time later. Unfortunately for her, her rescuers were a squad of short, squatty, hunchbacked Probus in threadbare potato sacks, and they carried her immediately to Castle Raven's Moon Manor.

* * *

This is where we finally catch up to our poor abused Winter Racer, as she was bound by chains to the wall of the dungeon in the very bottom floor of the castle, plotting some way to escape. The trek across the wastelands had cost her most of her patience, as well as most of her energy. Keeping herself cool had become a priority, particularly as she was dressed in heavy winter clothing in the middle of a sun beaten desert. That left her with little more than her intellect to help her in her escape plot. Once she regained her strength, she could muster the strength to burst her way out.

But these were the Probus she was dealing with, and despite a proven immunity to their most blatant effects, Adorabeezle didn't want to find out what might happen if they used other methods of persuasion on her. Unfortunately for her, Tabitha and Lloyd entered the room, and she realized with a sinking feeling that she was probably going to find out. Tabitha bowed gracefully.

"Good evening, my esteemed guest." Tabitha greeted.

"SUP!" Lloyd added.

"If you're hoping to convert me into one of your spineless, shrieking, sobbing little Ukes, you've got another thing coming! Your little parasite won't work on me!" Adorabeezle snapped viciously.

"Ah yes. I know, I know, we've heard. The Superior and the Grandmaster Fanboy have sent us a warning, and so we have prepared other methods of dealing with you and your... friends." Tabitha said moodily, tossing her head and sending her Halloween orange hair all about in a dramatic rush.

Adorabeezle set her jaw firmly, clenching her teeth. Whatever they had in store for her had to be less painful than accidentally wandering into a wasteland full of the remains of terrifying worlds.

"Lloyd, please prepare... the UKE-INATOR." Tabitha ordered, her eyes set on Adorabeezle and burning with hungry resolve.

"Righty-ho, mah Sugar Sis." Lloyd said.

He tossed a few more not-gang signs (this time, an index finger, the horns, and sign language for "I love you") and headed over to a nasty-looking switch on the wall, hooked up to a tremendous machine hanging from the ceiling. UKE-INATOR 8K was written on the sides in big block letters. Tabitha pouted slightly.

"Really, Lloyd, can't you try using the phrase I taught you the other day?" Tabitha asked.

"HUUWHAT?" Lloyd asked.

"You know? 'Yes, master'?" Tabitha asked with a short wave of her hands.

Lloyd thrust his head right and left so abruptly that it almost looked like he'd tip over in his Kickin' Shoes.

"Y'ALL BEST BE GETTIN' UP ON OUTTA MAH GRILL, YO!" Lloyd replied.

"Fine, fine... it was worth a try." Tabitha said.

"What are you going to do to me?" Adorabeezle asked icily.

"Well it's simple, really. We can't force your matrix out of your body to join us in the bonds of Seme Sisterhood, but with this machine, perhaps we can... persuade you a little bit." Tabitha replied, leaning close and toying with a strand of Adorabeezle's hair around her finger.

"Ain't many 'dem foo' dogs livin' roun' HEEEAAAAH's zat can handle da UKE-INATOR! WOOT WOOT! YEEEAAAYUH!" Lloyd yelled.

There was a pause. Adorabeezle blinked.

"What? The whole... sentence. I... I really don't think that thing is speaking any reasonably widespread variation on the English language. It's like southern... hillbilly... French... gangster." Adorabeezle said.

"HUUWHAT?" Lloyd asked.

Tabitha rolled her eyes.

"Lloyd, please. You're interrupting my evil speech. Now, Adorabeezle, be prepared for the most intense pain you have ever felt. Your matrix will be throbbing with agony when we flip that switch. If you have any self-preservation instinct in that body of yours, you will be begging to become one of us, if it will only stop the pain. It is the greatest suffering." Tabitha said.

"I'm not afraid of anything you can do. And mark my words, Taffyta, when I get out of these chains, I'm going to personally kill you." Adorabeezle said coldly.

"Don't call me by my slave name." Tabitha said.

She grinned and motioned for Lloyd to flip the switch. The machine's rotors began to spin, and the room filled with crackling electricity, flickering lights, bright colors, and the tingling hum of loud chords, loud enough for the unfortunate victims of the UKE-INATOR to feel the vibrations in their very chests. Tabitha cackled hysterically.

"Yes... it hurts, doesn't it?" Tabitha asked.

Adorabeezle laughed, equally amused.

"You've got to be kidding me." Adorabeezle replied.

"HUUWHAT?" Lloyd asked.

Tabitha's jaw dropped and she glared at Adorabeezle in disbelief.

"Why aren't you screaming? This is pain that has made greater people than you bleed out of their eyeballs!" Tabitha asked angrily.

"'It's A Small World After All'? Don't make me laugh. I'm 100% Disney, you fool! That song won't have any effect on me." Adorabeezle replied.

 _It's a world of laughter, a world of tears!_

 _It's a world of love and a world of fears..._

"Very well. I can see you are a formidable opponent. Lloyd, change it to Setting B." Tabitha ordered.

The record scratched out and Lloyd's expression dropped into utter horror.

"HUUWHAT? Not... not Settin' B, Homeslice! We ain't never had to subject no foo' t' Settin' B!" Lloyd said.

"Well, it's time." Tabitha said, stuffing a large amount of cotton in her ears.

"What's... Setting B?" Adorabeezle asked.

"It is the Ultimate Suffering." Tabitha replied, making sure to pronounce the capital letters.

Off on the other side of the dungeon, Lloyd hastily put on a pair of blinged-out safety earmuffs, before turning the dial to block out all sound as he opened the locked glass case for the UKE-INATOR 8K's Setting B. Adorabeezle tightened her fists so hard she could have squeezed sweat from her hands, and then braced herself back against the dungeon wall and took deep breaths. Mind over matter, she reminded herself. It was mind over matter. Be Prepared. She mustn't show weakness. Crumbelina and Minty would be there to get her out soon enough, so she just had to survive until then.

"It's been nice knowing you, Adorabeezle. Pull the switch, Lloyd!" Tabitha ordered wickedly.

Lloyd threw the switch to implement Setting B. At first, there was silence. But then the room filled with the most high, shrill, irritating, and entirely horrific sound ever heard by humanity, a sound that drove all it's victims madly, screamingly, killingly insane. A sound that was second only to Paris Hilton's 2006 single in the rankings of "Most Sadistic Sounds Ever Produced on the Audible Wavelength".

 _It's a piece of cake to make a pretty cake!_

 _If the way is hazy!_

 _You gotta do the cookin' by the book!_

 _You know you can't be lazy!_

 _Never use a messy recipe!_

 _The cake will end up..._

Any further lyrics were obscured by Adorabeezle's bloodcurdling screams of torture.

* * *

The screams echoed for miles and reached the ears of Crumbelina and Minty as they emerged from a portal created from Crumbelina's portal key just outside Castle Raven's Moon Manor.

"Crumbelina, listen... do you hear that?" Minty asked.

Crumbelina clenched her teeth. Whatever it was, she didn't like it.

"Yeah... what is it?" Crumbelina asked.

Minty's eyes narrowed furiously.

"That's Adorabeezle. And that is the sound of the Ultimate Suffering." Minty replied.


	14. The Dungeon

**Chapter 14: The Dungeon**

Just past the rusted sharpened iron gates of Castle Raven's Moon Manor, bordering the winding brick road up to the great drawbridge and front gates, there was a vast and macabre garden. Stems of dead flowers raised the shriveled blossoms into the light of the full moon, like the gristly hands of a corpse reaching out from the grave. Moonlight poured from above, perfectly round as it always was in this little corner of Adroit Crossings, a requiem for the eternal day that had never been born, cloaked in the shadow of the eternal night. Gothic statues stood like monoliths in the deeper sections of the garden, gargoyles and lawn gnomes almost seeming to move in the absence of sunlight. Foreboding bushes lined the path, expertly trimmed into the shapes of Dracula, Lestat, Vlad the Impaler, the girly Dracula from Castlevania, Alucard, Vampire Hunter D, Bela Lugosi, and Bunnicula. At the far end of the path was a particularly proud-looking bush, trimmed into the elegant figure of a very familiar being doing her very best to look like she belonged on the cover of a gothic horror novel. Crumbelina rolled her eyes at the bush's likeness.

"I don't know why I didn't realize earlier that Taffyta's Seme had a part in this." Crumbelina said.

"She and Gloyd's Seme must be working together here. They must be responsible for the horrid shape this world is in." Minty said.

"I couldn't care less about this revolting little piece of nowhere. But I would like our racers back as soon as possible." Crumbelina said.

"All three of them." Minty added.

Neither would acknowledge the fact, but the screams of torture echoing from the direction of the castle had been silenced. There was an apparent mutual dread to find out why that was. A wolf howled in the distance and suddenly there were footsteps coming down the stone path in a slow march towards the two racers.

"We have company." Crumbelina said.

Minty nodded silently, moving back-to-back against Crumbelina to keep an eye out in a full circle around them.

"AH-NEE-MAY! AH-NEE-MAAAAAY!" a croaky voice moaned.

"AH-NEE-MAY! AH-NEE-MAY!" a whole chorus of croaky voices said in unison.

Minty groaned, as they were suddenly set upon by a small mob of pasty red-eyed anime fans. This particular mob was made up of a species called Otaku Probus, so they were considerably more pasty and red-eyed than most anime fans. They wore cat ears, Naruto headbands, tattered and stained shirts with kanji for "I want a Japanese boy/girlfriend" emblazoned across the fronts, blue jeans, and Pikachu slippers. They carried boxes of pocky in greasy fingers and bottles of pressurized ramune hung from their belts, and the Probus symbol was tattooed proudly on their cheeks. The Probus in the back began to arm themselves with bootleg Hong Kong subtitled DVDs while those in the front continued their undead march towards Crumbelina and Minty, their arms out and their fingers itching to strangle some gaijin.

"They never seem to be anything more than cannon fodder nuisances." Crumbelina said, turning a whole group of the creatures nearest her into cookie statues, and then levitating them and throwing them into another group.

"No, it makes one wonder when we'll ever have to deal with a real challenge." Minty said, smashing those on her side with her fists.

The wounded Probus stumbled on the ground after the dealing of their death-blows, but much to the chagrin of the two females began to slowly lift themselves up as though only given flesh wounds, and those that had been hardened into cookie statues broke themselves out and rejoined their comrades.

"Why won't they die?" Crumbelina asked after her fourth or fifth attempt to kill a particularly stubborn group.

"This species must have gained ridiculously unrealistic stamina and recovery abilities, not unlike the majority of manga characters." Minty replied reasonably.

Unfortunately for Minty, she was suddenly set upon by a snarling gang of the creatures, who squeezed, poked, and pulled at her in outraged fury at her callous mispronunciation.

"MAHN-GA! MAAAAHN-GA!" the Probus moaned.

The Apple Toffee themed racer was quite a strong girl, but it was difficult to effortlessly shrug off the spaghetti-armed dorks when there were so many of them glomping all over her legs, arms, and back.

"Crumbs, a little help?" Minty asked.

"Obnoxious little brats!" Crumbelina roared, becoming quite frustrated as she attempted to free her friend from the onslaught.

Headless crawling Probus began to yank on her jacket like bloodthirsty zombies, and scrawny hands felt about in her pockets for any sign of a wallet, the only thing that could keep up the crack-like expenses of their favorite hobby.

"Back OFF! We don't have any of your accursed cartoons!" Crumbelina yelled.

A banshee-like shriek sounded in unison from their meek throats.

"AH-NEE-MAY! AH-NEEEEE-MAAAAAY!" the Probus screamed.

"I think we annoyed them." Minty said.

She thrusted her shoulders left and right and tried to swing her fists, but was barely able to move because of the mass of geeks currently clinging to her. Crumbelina cursed, as the little monsters started grabbing onto her buns and yanking her downward to join their writhing cesspool of nerdiness on the ground.

"They're stupider than anybody who thinks Naruto is an accurate depiction of ninjitsu!" Crumbelina said.

Minty managed a grin.

"Did you just go there?" Minty asked.

Crumbelina smirked despite herself.

"I rather think I did." Crumbelina replied.

"NAH-RU-TOH! NAAAH-RU-TOOOOH!" the Probus screamed.

"NUH-RU-DOH!" a solitary Probus in the back added.

The unfortunate little chap was immediately set upon by his own kind, who ripped him limb from limb. Crumbelina and Minty stared at the grisly scene for only a second or two before the answer came to them.

"Minty, answer me a question. What would Aeris do in this situation?" Crumbelina asked quickly.

"I'm not sure. I've always subscribed to the philosophy of Luffy." Minty replied without missing a beat.

The Otaku Probus all gasped in simultaneous horror.

"AERITH!" half of the Probus screamed.

"LOO-FEE!" the other half of the Probus screamed.

The screaming was met by more gasps of horror.

"AERIS!" the first half of Probus screamed.

"LUHFF-EE! the second half of Probus screamed.

"How about Yuffie?" Crumbelina asked.

"Oh no, I'd be more concerned about keeping my head in a more Tidus-like fashion." Minty replied.

"YOO-FFEE!" the first half of Probus screamed.

"TAI-DUS!" the second half of Probus screamed.

"YUH-FFEE!" a third half of Probus screamed.

"TEE-DUH!" a fourth half of Probus screamed.

"The real question is what Sakamoto would do." Crumbelina said unnecessarily, as the Otaku Probus were already busy screaming and choking each other over pronunciations.

The Probus slowly began to fall away from Crumbelina and Minty, turning instead to the very important task of correcting each other over the pronunciation of the names of fictional characters. When neither side of any particular argument would back down, there came the slaps, the pokes, the pushes, the shoves, the foot-stomping, the biting, the clawing, the ripping, and the dismembering. The two Sugar Rushers stumbled back a safe distance away and watched the scuffle, recovering their strength with big evil smiles on their faces. Crumbelina sighed with a satisfied smirk.

"Oh, it's a beautiful thing." Crumbelina said.

"Makes me wish I'd watched a little more Evangelion, wouldn't you agree, Crumbelina?" Minty asked loudly.

That was the last straw. In a great explosion of noise, the Otaku Probus gave their final screams of self-righteous trivial nonsense (some combination of "EHV-AN-JEL-EE-ON!", "EEV-AN-GEHL-EE-ON", and a few random Japanese curses from the ones that were too incensed and upset to even argue). Then the whole mob of them exploded in a magnificent burst of cherry blossoms, sweatdrops, and comical nose blood, leaving nothing behind but smears and half-emptied boxes of coconut almond pocky.

"Handled with delightful cleverness as always, Minty." Crumbelina said.

"I only wish Adorabeezle was here to see it." Minty said.

"We shouldn't waste anymore time. Let's get inside this place and rescue our unfortunate comrades." Crumbelina said.

"Too right." Minty said.

The two of them rushed up the path and through the castle's front door.

* * *

If there was one thing Tabitha was good at, it was brooding. She had a vast repertoire of skills, but brooding happened to be one of her specialties. She was currently staring out the theater window of her chamber in the highest center tower of the castle, gazing ceaselessly at the full moon with a dark gleam in her eyes. It's silvery light glinted off the dark fibers on the trim of her dress and the sabers displayed on the walls behind her. It was such a beautiful night and she felt good. Perhaps later, she and Lloyd would go outside and grill some beer can chicken.

Suddenly, her pleasant thoughts of a nice midnight barbecue were interrupted by a pair of semi-familiar scents catching in her nose. Tabitha inhaled, sniffing. Her eyes narrowed and she clenched his teeth together, and suddenly, the moon was a very unpleasant thing. It was calling to her, chanting her name, trying to edge her away from what was fine and upright and comfortable and admirable and towards the truth.

"Sugar Rushers." Tabitha snarled, tightening her fists so hard that her already pale knuckles turned bone-white.

She turned dramatically from the window and stomped towards the chamber door. They would have to be dealt with immediately.

* * *

Following the guidebook's signal and fighting off hoards of Otaku Probus by starting amusing fights about stupid things, Crumbelina and Minty were able to quickly navigate the hallways of Castle Raven's Moon Manor until they reached the long stairs down into the dungeons, where there were a few weak unidentified signals flashing for attention.

"Do you suppose she's alright?" Minty asked softly as they reached a doorway at the bottom of the stairs.

"I don't know. We three are supposedly immune to the Probus parasite, but if they've done something else to her..." Crumbelina started to reply.

"If they have, we'll deal with it like we've dealt with the others. Simple as that." Minty said.

She placed a hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it, before she and Crumbelina made their way into the dungeons. It was eerily silent in the cavernous main room of the dungeon. All sorts of nasty-looking machines of torture and other unknown purposes hung from the walls, a fairly impressive one hanging from the ceiling above. At the far end of the room was a slab with some body covered by a stained white sheet.

And nearby, chained to the wall and passed out, was Adorabeezle.

She was obviously not dead, her comrades noted as they rushed across the room to her aid. Game characters did not leave bodies behind when they died outsides of their games, but simply faded away. Whatever happened to her, Adorabeezle was still alive. But in quite a state. She was bedraggled, exhausted-looking, and paler than the vocal comparison of Paul Rodgers to Freddie Mercury. Her hair rested stringy and dirty over her shoulders, and her eyes were closed as though she was merely sleeping. She was unresponsive as Minty stood beside her and attempted to wake her.

"Adorabeezle! Adorabeezle! Wake up! Are you alright?" Minty asked, shaking her by the shoulders.

For all intents and purposes, Adorabeezle appeared to be quite dead, as she was barely breathing but healthily pulseless.

"What did they do to her?" Minty asked in a rising tone, as Crumbelina poked around the equipment on the walls.

"I don't know." Crumbelina replied.

She glared at the complex machinery and devices like they had personally insulted her in hiding their purposes. She then turned her attention to the slab and the still body a short distance away, staring back and forth between Adorabeezle and the figure obscured by the sheet.

"Adorabeezle! Adorabeezle!" Minty said loudly in her ear.

Suddenly, Adorabeezle began to stir, groaning heavily and letting one of her eyes slide wearily open. Minty sighed with slight relief.

"There, she's awake." Minty said.

"Adorabeezle, what happened?" Crumbelina asked, hurrying over to assess her condition.

Adorabeezle didn't reply for a moment, as she seemed to be gathering her wits. She moaned a few short high-pitched nonsense syllables and stared sleepily at her rescuers, tilting her head ever-so-slightly to the side.

"Are you alright? Say something." Crumbelina asked.

"Ngggppggnhmggghggm?" Adorabeezle asked eloquently.

Minty gave her a few steady pats on the shoulder.

"There now, calm down. Take a moment to collect yourself." Minty said reassuringly.

Adorabeezle very slowly opened her other eye, squinting in the bright light of the room and making confused faces at her comrades, as though working very hard to piece together what had happened to her. She weakly lifted her hands, chains jingling and banging against the wall as she tried to motion something with her hands.

"Mmmph. Mmmmmph." Adorabeezle moaned.

"What is it?" Crumbelina asked.

Adorabeezle began moving her lips very slowly, though no sound came out as she seemed to be mouthing something. She glanced back and forth from Crumbelina to Minty with fear in her eyes, mouthing faster and faster and seeming to shrink away in horror of remembrance.

"Speak up, Adorabeezle. It's alright, they won't hurt you anymore. We'll get you out. Just tell us what happened." Minty said gently.

Adorabeezle finally began to mumble unintelligibly, the same syllables she'd been mouthing silently, her eyes glazing over with traumatized fear.

"Pccktmkaprtycke. Fthwyshzy." Adorabeezle whispered.

"Adorabeezle?" Crumbelina asked.

"Speak up." Minty said encouragingly.

Adorabeezle's voice suddenly broke in a high-pitched moan. Her chains jangled as she reached out, grabbed Crumbelina and Minty by the collars, and pulled them very close to her.

"You don't understand. You don't understand! Can't understand. Can't hear! Can't see can't speak or feel or know can't understand why." Adorabeezle said quickly.

"Calm down. Just tell us what happened." Crumbelina ordered sternly.

Adorabeezle's voice tilted into a miserable wail.

"Bits and pieces little bits and pieces of apple chunks coming up. Running and walking on two legs dancing singing like a girl... not a girl, not a girl, a monster... grotesque plastic faces smiling and laughing and moving like it's natural, but it's not natural right and left and back and forth and up and down... can't speak, can't hear, can't feel, or know don't understand why... why! Why!" Adorabeezle cried.

Crumbelina and Minty stared at their friend in horror as the events of the past few hours began to come together. Adorabeezle's voice rose into a helpless scream.

"By the book by the book by the book by the book by the book! BY THE BOOK! BY THE BOOK! YOU GOTTA DO THE COOKIN' BY THE BOOK! By the book... by the book, oh merciful worlds, not the cake... not the cake! They wouldn't stop... hours... minutes fading into hours of it... the cake... i-it's the cake... THE CAKE!" Adorabeezle yelled.

The other racers quickly broke themselves out of Adorabeezle's grip and backed away as fast as they could, eyes wide in shock and terror. The types of villains Sugar Rush fought were not the types of kind people. They toyed with minds, they twisted relationships, they used lives as tools, they manipulated innocents, and they spread chaos. They caused destruction and mayhem, they were amoral and didn't care about the consequences, and they used any means to achieve their ends. But no one, no matter how desperate, no matter how mean, and no matter how evil, would ever do something like this to any sort of being.

"Those freaks. Those sick twisted freaks!" Crumbelina said angrily.

"This will not stand. They will pay!" Minty sneered.

"Will they?" a cool evil voice asked from behind them.

Suddenly, Crumbelina and Minty were thrown forward by a burst of ice and sleet. They skidded to a halt just short of slamming the poor delusional Adorabeezle into the wall and turned around in time for a very climactic lightning strike and thunder clap, announcing the presence of someone new. The body on the slab slowly rose up, unnaturally loose and dragging limbs like a rag doll, and a pale hand yanked away the sheet.

"YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAWWW! Y'ALL GIRLS IS ALL KINDA EXCITIN' T' BE MEETIN' FOR TH' FIRST TIME!" a voice shouted.

It was fair to say that this was the first time anybody had seen Adorabeezle (or at least, somebody who looked just like her) in a sweat-stained trucker cap. Her red flannel shirt was tucked into ripped and greasy blue jeans, the pantlegs similarly tucked into a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots and held up by a pair of camouflage suspenders. The creature on the table snorted loudly, hocked a massive loogie off to the side, and grinned like an idiot with shiny white buck teeth. The Adorabeezle-thing spun on the seat of her pants and hopped to her feet, hitching her thumbs in her pants.

"HOOOOOEEEEYYY! HOWDY Y'ALL! ADORABELLA'S mah name! Awful pleasure t' be meetin' y'all!" the Adorabeezle-thing more or less hollered.

Crumbelina and Minty stared silently at the Seme, and then over at Adorabeezle, staring in abject horror at the creature that had risen from the slab.

"Oh no no no no no no no no no NO." Adorabeezle mumbled.

"What was it Adorabeezle said we were to do if she ever got turned?" Crumbelina asked.

"She said to give her twenty minutes, and if she wasn't back to normal, kill her." Minty replied.

"Am I alone in thinking it would be a mercy killing if we put her out of her misery now?" Crumbelina asked.

"No, Crumbelina, I think Adorabeezle would appreciate it if we saved her a little dignity and killed her immediately." Minty replied.

"But she did say twenty minutes." Crumbelina said.

If it was her, she would certainly want to be dead.

"Let's see if we can't defuse the situation before then." Minty said grimly.

Adorabella giggled lecherously, grinning like she had just won free tickets to a Toby Keith concert.

"Awww shyoooooot! Y'all ain't gonna be gettin' rid'a me so soon now, are ya? I been waitin' t' deal y'all a hand'a TEXAS DEATH HOLD 'EM!" Adorabella said.

"HUWHAAT?" a voice asked.

The sudden shine of bling across the room announced the presence of Homie G Lloyd, posing melodramatically at the top of the stairway. He spun his pimp cane and grinned, showing off a mouthful of sparkly gold teeth.

"Now Lloyd knows y'all ain't makin' plans f'r card games 'round HEAH wit'out 'im, EH? EH?" Lloyd asked.

"HOWDY, 'CUZ! Y'all wanna come on down an' help me take these fellers out?" Adorabella asked, waving and tipping her hat.

"AW HECK NAW! Homeslice's all 'Yo, Lloyd, we's gonna turn all three'o'dem peeps t' our side, an' we gets us some favas from the Sups', ya dig?" Lloyd asked.

Adorabella danced a little excited jig.

"Hear ya loud n' clear, buddy! Let's GIT R DUN!" Adorabella replied.

"HUUWHAAT?" Lloyd asked.

"GIT R DUN!" Adorabella replied.

"YEEAAYUH!" Lloyd said.

"I didn't understand a word of that." Crumbelina said, shaking her head in utter disbelief.

"I'm almost glad Adorabeezle isn't in any condition to witness this." Minty said.

"In any case, she and the English language have suffered enough. I don't know how much more of this I can stand. Let's get it over with." Crumbelina said.

"We're down to seventeen minutes before we should kill Adorabeezle." Minty said.

"You take Gloyd's, I'll take Adorabeezle's?" Crumbelina asked.

"Sounds good to me." Minty replied.

She made her way across the room to face her opponent. With a smug grin, Lloyd kicked a switch on the floor nearby as the girl approached. A hip-hop rhythm filled the room through the extra large speakers, and he twirled around in circles before striking another dramatic pose.

"Yo-yo, big girl, 'SUP? Now y'all gonna watch n' learn cuz HOMIE G LLOYD... he got Skillz That Killz, a'ight?" Lloyd asked.

Minty did not look very impressed as Lloyd launched into a snazzy four-minute hip-hop crunk and breakdancing demo, a fairly disconcerting sight for anybody who knew the Pumpkin themed racer from his racer life. But suddenly, the music began to speed up. Lloyd stood straight and snapped his fingers in time to the beat. He grinned at Minty evilly and a dark glow came about him. Minty tightened her fists, bracing herself for Lloyd's inevitable first attack. She watched closely as the Seme reached into his pocket and pulled out four flashy holographic-backed playing cards, carefully studying the numbers and the suits before throwing them up in the air.

This was going to be difficult.

Let it be known that while Gloyd only had his trickster abilities and technically didn't have a real threatening weapon when helping the Sugar Rush team during missions, there wasn't one among their number who would ever doubt how dangerous and skillful a fighter he was. Cocky challengers always laughed when they found out that "all" Gloyd could do was create tiny little pumpkin bombs or make traps. Gloyd always took it in stride, simply smiling and then challenging the offender to a little game of cards or dice on the side. That more often then not resulted in humiliated, naked, and penniless offenders begging and pleading for Gloyd to stop collecting the "stakes" as he saw fit. Gloyd was also single-handedly responsible for the end of Sugar Rush's weekly Game Night, after the great Monopoly Incident of forty years ago. So when Gloyd's cards began to swirl around him faster and faster, more illusory cards gathering behind him and spinning in preparation to strike, one cannot blame Minty for hedging her own bets the way she did. Lloyd cacked maniacally.

"Y'all gonna be prayin' to yo momma fo' mercy up in HEAH! Y'all can't stop the HIP-HOP!" Lloyd said.

"Yes, I can." Minty said.

Lloyd snorted condescendingly.

"YEAAAYUH? How y'all thinkin'?" Lloyd asked.

"With rock." Minty replied.

Lloyd was suddenly slammed against the wall, causing parts of it to fall and entomb him.

"Let's see you dig out of there with your pimp cane and playing cards." Minty sneered.

Meanwhile, Crumbelina was clashing with the horrifyingly out-of-character Adorabeezle Seme, who backed away briefly from the Caramel themed racer and giggled.

"Y'all're pretty tough, partner! I'm'onna make you squeal like a piggy." Adorabella said.

"I'll go easy on you if you just promise to never ever say that again." Crumbelina said in disgust.

"Now why y'all goin' all off'n tryin' t' kill me now? Y'all know I'm havin' FUN over here on off by mahself an' away from that!" Adorabella asked with a twisted grin.

She gestured back over to the real Adorabeezle, who had fallen silent and was watching the proceedings with a blank expression.

"We both know you're not going to be here very long. Let's just get it over with." Crumelina replied.

"Ah-HUH!" Adorabella said. There was a sudden spastic jerk of her head and she stuttered "Ah-HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH!".

There was something clearly wrong with Adorabella, as her head continued to jerk and her limbs twitched convulsively.

"YEEHAW! YEEHAW! YEEHAW! P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-Partner!" Adorabella stuttered.

"That is NOT me!" Adorabeezle yelled desperately.

"I know, Adorabeezle. Just stay there and stay calm. I'll deal with her." Crumbelina said as she and Adorabella circled each other, the latter still jerking like a Final Fantasy fanboy in line at the Advent Children premiere.

"No... I mean, that is not me! It's not my Seme!" Adorabeezle said, still dazed, but doing her best to make sense and gesture with her chained hands.

Crumbelina whipped her head around to glance at her friend in shock.

"It's what?" Crumbelina asked.

"Behind you!" Adorabeezle replied.

Crumbelina lurched forward suddenly as Adorabella tackled her, wrapping her arms around the tan skinned woman's neck and squeezing her throat.

"YEEEHAW! RIDE 'EM, COWGIRL!" Adorabella yelled.

Screaming in rage, Crumbelina swung an elbow back to knock the whatever-it-was off of her, spinning and lunging to dislodge the evil redneck Adorabeezle from her person. Finally, she managed to get an arm around the thing's neck, pulling it's head forward for a nice meeting with Crumbelina's fist. But she figured something was very wrong when the front of Adorabella's face impacted.

"What the heck!" Crumbelina snapped.

"YA GOL' DARN GONE AN' DUNNIT!" Adorabella shouted.

Adorabella fell to the ground and continued to spasm, sparks popping from her joints and smoke pouring from her eyes, mouth, and nose.

"I GOT FRIENDS IN LOOOOOOOW PLACES!" Adorabella shouted.

Layers of skin, hair, and clothes purchased from an Army Surplus store began to crumble and melt away from a metallic frame. Crumbelina backed away from the malfunctioning Adorabella, grasping at her throat.

"Wait, it's not a Seme. It's a Replica!" Crumbelina said.

"Kill it!" Adorabeezle ordered from her spot on the wall, apparently feeling more like her old usual self.

Never the type to ask questions or debate when the options came down to killing or being molested by a creepy replica of a friend of her's, Crumbelina turned a portion of the floor into a cookie floor. She then held out a hand and broke off the cookie floor, before levitating it and throwing it at the Adorabeezle Replica, smashing it to the ground in a great shower of sparks and motor oil.


	15. Tabitha & Lloyd

**Chapter 15: Tabitha & Lloyd**

Once everything quieted down, Crumbelina let out an immense sigh.

"Why didn't you say anything earlier, Adorabeezle? We were ten minutes from putting you out of your misery!" Crumbelina asked.

"If the two of you knew what they put me through before you got here, you wouldn't be so snappy with me." Adorabeezle replied, looking quite a bit healthier then she had a few minutes earlier thanks to a game character's rate of recovery.

"Something about cake?" Crumbelina asked as Minty made her way over to join them.

Adorabeezle shuddered visibly at the hated word.

"I've got Gloyd's Seme trapped over there for the moment. We can deal with him whenever we're ready. It's good to see that you're feeling better, Adorabeezle." Minty said.

"I can speak coherently, at least. But I still feel as though I was hit by a train." Adorabeezle said.

"At least your matrix is intact. But why would they bother making a Replica of you?" Crumbelina asked, staring distastefully at what remained of Adorabella.

"It's fuzzy, but I don't think their coercion methods to get a Seme out of me were working." Adrabeezle replied as Minty got to work on releasing her from her chains.

"Good show, Adorabeezle. It was very strong of you to stand up in the face of such pure absolute torture." Minty said.

Adorabeezle sighed, weary and exhausted.

"Thank you. I used up much of my power trying to withstand their experiments. I don't think I'll be up for any fights on this world." Adorabeezle said.

"And we wouldn't ask it of you. Concentrate on regaining your strength, and Minty and I will handle any more fighting that needs to be done." Crumbelina said reassuringly.

From up on the top of the stairway, there came the sound of a slow clap. Tabitha smiled eerily at them as she appeared in all her gothic glory.

"Bravo... bravo, ladies. Very nice detective work. The Grandmaster Fanboy and our Superior were very insistent that we find a way to incapacitate the three of you, but your dear friend we captured just didn't seem to want to cooperate." Tabitha said.

"You! You're going to pay for what you did to me!" Adorabeezle snarled, freed from her chains just in time.

Crumbelina smiled with fake good-nature.

"Ah, Taffyta. We thought it was you holed up in this horrible drab little castle." Crumbelina said.

"Don't call me by my slave name, Crumbelina." Tabitha ordered.

She threw back a predatory grin and brushed very shiny long orange hair from her face, her eyes glittering in the dim light of the dungeon laboratory. But then, she suddenly paused and placed a hand on her chin.

"No, no, no, that won't do at all. What a terribly timed entrance!" Tabitha said.

"Pardon?" Minty asked.

"I ought to have come in right after you mentioned the Replica. No, no, see, what did I say? About detective work! Agh! It'd sound so much more diabolical if I came in at the proper time... now hold on a moment. I'm going to leave and come back and we'll try that again. Say something about the Replica!" Tabitha replied.

Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle stared at her dumbly as she spun around and exited the dungeon again with a loud slam of the door.

"What in the name of..." Adorabeezle started to say.

Crumbelina eyed her two comrades.

"What about the Replica?" Crumbelina asked.

From up on the top of the stairway, there came the sound of a slow clap. Tabitha smiled eerily at them as she appeared in all her gothic glory.

"Bravo... bravo, ladies. Very nice detective work. The Grandmaster Fanboy and our Superior were very insistent that we find a way to incapacitate the three of you, but your dear friend we captured just didn't seem to want to cooperate." Tabitha said. She then smiled, laced her fingers together, and said "That was much better. Perfect.".

Ignoring the dumbstruck trio down below, Tabitha slowly mounted the stairs and continued drawling on in a light sinister voice.

"Yes... all we needed was to buy a little time from our dear Superiors until we could figure out how, precisely, to get our hands on those lovely matrixes of yours. So my associate Lloyd and I built a Replica until we could present our masters with a true Seme." Tabitha explained.

"No wonder it broke down so quickly, with such shoddy hurried construction." Minty said.

"It is much better then you could have done, you dundering oaf!" Tabitha snapped.

"As though it weren't enough you were the empty brainless shell of one of our most best racers in Sugar Rush! You are also a ridiculous elitist idiot and a sadistic torturer, whose evil is unfit to exist in even the deepest darkness!" Crumbeline yelled.

"As such, we're going to destroy you and your associate." Minty added.

Tabitha laughed maniacally and threw her hands up to the sky as a window shade across the room dramatically flew open, pouring silver moonlight into the dungeon (despite the fact that the dungeon was underground).

"Ahahahahah! You insignificant worms! You fools really think you can defeat me? Me, Lady Tabitha, the castellan mistress of Castle Raven's Moon Manor? Overlord and ruler of all Adroit Crossings? Entire worlds have crumbled beneath my mighty wrath! And the three... no, the two of you think you can possibly defeat me?" Tabitha asked.

"In a word, yes." Minty replied, not taking Tabitha's snide comments about Adorabeezle's inability to fight in a very light manner at all.

In actuality, Tabitha was referring to the fact that Adorabeezle had vanished somewhere between her first and second dramatic entrances, so there were, in fact, only two Sugar Rushers standing against her.

"Very well. Allow me to show you just how hopelessly disillusioned you are." Tabitha sneeered.

She reached the bottom of the stairs, and crossed her arms over her chest in the manner of a corpse lying in the coffin.

"Moonlight! Shine down upon me!" Tabitha shouted.

She began to tremble and quiver, taking on a vaguely evil glow as the moonlight cascaded over her body. Her eyes began to glitter blood red and she lurched as though undergoing some transformation.

"Oh, wonderful." Crumbelina muttered.

"Let me guess. She's a werewolf in this world, isn't she?" Minty asked.

"Either that or she's Sailor Moon. In which case, all we need to defeat her is to call her by her dubbed name. She'll convulse and explode in a blind rage." Crumbelina replied.

Across the dungeon, Tabitha was fully in the throes of her transformation, growing claws, longer and silkier hair in a mane down her neck and back, and fangs. Adorable puppy ears sprang up from her head, and once she had made it about halfway before she got too terribly ugly or beastly, the transformation ceased. She cleared her throat, emitting a loud and primal howl at the moon.

"Sssso you ssssssee? You forccccced me to reveal my TRUE SSSSSELF! And now, I am going to DESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTROY you!" Tabitha snarled, as the last echoes of her howl dissipated through the room.

"Bring it on." Crumbelina said.

Tabitha's lovely hair fell in her face as she paced towards them slowly and dramatically, each step a testament to her evilness and lycanthropic nature, her eyes wide, her teeth bared, and her lips pulled back into a gruesome snarl.

"As I made your ridiculous snow girl comrade scream for mercy, I will make you scream when you are writhing beneath me as I sup upon your blood and devour your still-beating heart from..." Tabitha started to say.

No sooner had the words escaped Tabitha's lips when there was the sound of electrical jolting from up above. The Seme and both Sugar Rushers looked up quickly to see what was going on when a tremendous piece of scaffolding holding the UKE-INATOR 8K snapped from it's rivets and tumbled to the dungeon floor with a deafening crash. Crumbelina and Minty were able to get safely out of the way just in time, but Tabitha had barely managed to dodge, finding herself pinned as the scaffolding ground against the floor and barely missed impaling her, merely trapping her against another massive machine.

"First of all, I am not ridiculous." an icy voice said from atop the fallen scaffolding.

Tabitha grunted and squirmed, trying to escape from her predicament and growing just the slightest bit panicked as a dark figure drew closer and closer to her with something in their hands.

"And second, I never screamed for mercy from you, you sick deluded brat." the figure said.

Tabitha glared in fury at the angry silhouette.

"You releasssssse me thisssss insssstant! I was not BORN to be CAGED..." Tabitha started to order angrily.

That's when Tabitha saw what Adorabeezle was holding, and she fell completely silent, save for a pathetic puppy-like whimper from the back of her throat. Adorabeezle leaned inches away from Tabitha and stared her straight in the eye, before she slipped a pair of rudimentary headphones over the orange haired girl's werewolf ears and took a few steps back towards the switch.

"Wh-Wh-What are you doing? You can't... n-no! No! You wouldn't!" Tabitha said nervously.

"I'm only keeping my promise, Tabitha. I did say I'd kill you myself, didn't I?" Adorabeezle asked.

And with that, she flipped the switch. Silence filled the room, before a dreadful noise came. It was the sound of continued silence where there should have been screaming, but it was the silence that occurred when the victim was utterly incapable of screaming for one reason or another. Tabitha was incapable of screaming because her entire body had seized into convulsions. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her mouth froze open, and blood poured from her throat and the corners of her eyes. Crumbelina and Minty appeared over Adorabeezle's shoulder and glanced down in horror, just in time to watch Tabitha choke to death on her own vomit.

Then, she exploded. From the chunks came a burst of blue glowing sparkles, devolving to the shapeless blue blob the Seme had been born from and leaving a smear on the dungeon floor to mark where her body had been. Minty very calmly opened the Tupperware and Taffyta's matrix drifted wispily in to join it's comrades. Adorabeezle, utterly calm, flipped the switch off.

"What the heck was that?" Crumbelina asked after a moment of silence.

"Payback." Adorabeezle replied.

"No, I mean... what was that? I've never seen such a reaction!" Crumbelina asked.

Adorabeezle brushed her hair from her eyes, looking quite satisfied at her vengeance.

"Paris Hilton's 2006 single." Adorabeezle replied.

That was a side of Adorabeezle that Crumbelina had never observed before. She took a very small step away.

"Anyway, let's finish off Gloyd's Seme and get the heck out of here. I'm sick to death of this world." Adorabeezle said.

"One problem there." Minty said from where she was examining the stone chamber that had held Gloyd.

"What? What happened?" Crumbelina asked.

"He escaped." Minty replied, gesturing to the small hole in the side of the rock that appeared to have been dug by a pimp cane.

* * *

Homie G Lloyd was not as all-out imposing as his late colleague Tabitha. He did not have the eerie atmosphere about him, he was not the lord of the castle (thanks to that one stupid coin flip), and he was never accompanied by thunderclaps, sultry moonlight, and gargoyle statues.

He was not, however, stupid.

Upon escaping from his rocky predicament, Lloyd had known that his partner Tabitha was going to die. Lloyd was an enterprising Seme, however, and knew that even if Castle Raven's Moon Manor fell to the wrath of the three Sugar Rushers, he could still get away with some glory. Unfortunately, sneaking out the back way while leaving his partner to suffer the most horrible death imaginable did not qualify one for glory, so Lloyd was happy enough to settle for getting away with all the treasure from Tabitha's vaults.

He was currently zipping away from the castle as fast as he could in the S.R. Hybrid, a model with spinning rims, vanity plates, green and orange leopard-print interior upholstery, fuzzy dice in the window, and a custom paint job with hot rod flames. The extra spacious backseat of the ship was filled to bursting with money, valuables, jewels, and gold, all stolen from the castle's treasure vault and previously stolen from the unfortunate residents of Adroit Crossings.

Lloyd sighed dreamily, leaning far back in the driver's seat and blasting on some Ginuwine to relax as he made his getaway. He bobbed his head and set the cruise control and the hydraulics, and the ship drifted lazily through the sky on it's way... well, he didn't know where, exactly. He just needed to find a new 'hood to haunt. Cruising just over Toontown, Lloyd glanced out the window at all the Toons down below. They would hear about Tabitha soon enough, and he was sure they'd be really happy about it. That is, until they heard that he was still around. This wouldn't be too bad! He was the sole lord of the world now! Bad to be Tabitha, but hey, may the best man survive, right?

"YEEEAYUH." Lloyd said, agreeing with his own thoughts.

The thoughts were quickly interrupted by a shrill beeping noise.

"HUUUWHAT?" Lloyd asked.

He sat up and stared at the ship's monitor, which was flashing red and white obnoxiously over the CD player.

 _"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. EVASIVE ACTION SUGGESTED."_ the ship's computer blared.

Lloyd scrambled to take the ship back into normal mode, cursing quietly under his breath and glancing out the back to try and get a good view of his pursuers. The words _"S.R. PLIGHT"_ were written in proud block script on the bow of the approaching ship.

"Whudda foo' girls thinkin' they gonna chase Lloyd gotta nudda fing comin', A'IGHT?" Lloyd said.

 _"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. EVASIVE ACTION HIGHLY SUGGESTED."_ the computer blared.

"I'M WORKIN' ON IT!" Lloyd yelled.

 _"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. ENEMY WEAPONS CHARGING. I WOULD MOVE OUT OF THE WAY IF I WAS YOU."_ the computer blared.

Lloyd struggled against the tight controls jerking around in the turbulent airflows and desperately thrashed right and left to get away from the sights of the ship behind him as the alarms blared louder and louder.

 _"WARNING. WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. ENEMY GRAVITRON CANNON PREPARING TO FIRE. IMPACT IS ESTIMATED TO DESTROY THE SHIP. EVASIVE ACTION HIGHLY SUGGESTED. OTHERWISE PLEASE ASSUME THE SAFETY POSITION."_ the computer blared.

"HUUWHAT POSITION?" Lloyd asked.

The computer showed a helpful diagram of a stick figure man placing his head between his knees and kissing his butt goodbye.

 _"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. COUNTDOWN TO IMPACT IN TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SIX..."_ the computer started to blare.

"HUUWHAT? Huuwhat happened to seven?" Lloyd asked.

 _"JUST KIDDING. SEVEN... SIX... FIVE... FOUR... THREE... TWO... ONE... HAVE A NICE DAY!"_ the computer blared.

"Yeaayuh, thanks." Lloyd muttered, crossing his arms in an angry pout.

A few moments later, a fourth shining blue matrix was floating in the Tupperware dish.

* * *

A beautiful fireball lit the skies of Toontown that evening. But this wasn't any ordinary fireball. It was so bright it made the bleak rainy skies of the slums look like the brightest day of spring, with beautiful rainbow lights shimmering shrapnel down from a smoky burst high in the air. The Toons woke from their bleary dreams and wandered out of their broken-down houses to watch. Then it occurred to them that the explosion had spawned some sort of weird rainstorm. Huge shining drops began to fall from the sky in the general direction of the explosion.

"Dad! Dad, look! It's not rain! It's money!" Gosalyn yelled, racing back and forth across the town square and gathering up the "raindrops".

"Well, whaddya know?" Drake Mallard asked, having just broken himself out of jail with a paperclip and staring up at the sky as the money came raining down.

But it wasn't just money. Jewels, gold, precious family heirlooms, and other stolen items that the Toons had been missing terribly were falling from the sky and into the open arms of the characters who desperately needed them.

"This means that Lady Tabitha and Lord Lloyd must have defeated!" a random Toon said.

The Toons gathered in town square for a happy celebration, a great bonfire and a dance concluding in the blissful group singing the Toontown official anthem "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile".

"This calls for a masterpiece to commemorate the occasion!" a short blue bear in the crowd said, racing off to work as the inspiration hit him.

* * *

The S.R. Plight floated through space on it's way to the next world, and Adorabeezle was taking a much-needed chance to help herself recuperate. Minty took off her reading glasses and put away her psychiatry notes.

"I think we've had a very good session, Adorabeezle. I think you're well on your way to beating this thing." Minty said.

Adorabeezle sat up from the couch and stretched, taking a deep breath.

"Thank you, Minty. I heal a little more every minute. You two will forgive me, of course, if I refuse to partake in any celebratory cake once this mission is done and over with, right?" Adorabeezle asked.

"Perfectly understandable." Crumbelina replied, leaning against the doorframe and enjoying a box of coconut almond pocky.

"I don't know what could possibly be worse than that world." Adorabeezle said, shaking her head.

"Well, it's not so much the concept of a crossover that is terrible, but the trite, repetitive, clichéd, and overdone crossover is something to be avoided." Minty said, heading up to take the controls of the ship.

"Not to mention, a crossover becomes difficult to maintain if you cannot properly keep your eyes on the characterizations of all the different characters involved. It's also quite perilous to maintain the 'feel' of each of the worlds you are attempting to invoke. It's in that aspect that Tabitha and Lloyd utterly failed, resulting in the destruction of every world they touched." Crumbelina said.

Adorabeezle sighed.

"A shame, really. There was so much potential." Adorabeezle said.

"Except for that Inuyasha fellow. He's completely hopeless." Minty said.

The three shared a laugh.

"And look at it this way, Adorabeezle. We've seen the limit. There's nothing possibly worse that you could go through on this journey." Crumbelina said.

"Darn right." Adorabeezle said.

"I'm picking up a world in the near vicinity, ladies. Should we approach it?" Minty asked.

"Pick up some statistics first. What's the name of it?" Adorabeezle asked.

"Uh, readings indicate the place is called..." Minty started to reply.

She suddenly made a very odd expression.

"Minty, what world is it?" Crumbelina asked.

"It's called 'Voreland'." Minty replied.

Adorabeezle choked, while Crumbelina spit out bits of pocky.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Crumbelina and Minty screamed in unison.

The S.R. Plight screeched to a halt and shot off in the opposite direction, full throttle.


	16. The Fourth World

**Chapter 16: The Fourth World**

 _"Location: Fandom Heights, October 17th 2110"_

Candi was having the most wonderful dream of her life. In her dream, she had no idea where she was or what was actually going on. She couldn't remember the Probus attack, the siege on Sugar Rush, her abrupt kidnapping, and the unfortunate chain of events that had been set in motion with her abduction. She could not remember the faces and names of her tormentors, nor could she remember their plans for her.

There was no risk of her waking halfway through, right when it got to the good part. Candi would sleep until she was awakened by either her captors or any would-be rescuers.

Candi dreamed of a summer that would never end. She dreamed of long lazy days with nothing to do but whatever she wished. She dreamed of blue oceans, white wave crests, and turquoise sand bars stretching as far as the eye could see. She dreamed of a golden beach with lush green palms and a warm breeze, juicy fruit cut up in a paper bowl and the remnants of popsicles sticky on the edge of her lips.

The corners of her mouth curled into a dazed smile as she slept, securely bolted down to a slab in the dankest corner in the deepest room of the darkest tower in Fandom Heights.

* * *

The second darkest tower in Fandom Heights glistened faintly with the last flash of lightning. Gloomy rain poured constantly down on it's weather-beaten glass panes and sleek black steel roof. The top room of the tower was an impressive luxurious loft with black-painted walls decorated with posters of multiple-word-named bands like My Chemical Romance, As I Lay Dying, Avenged Sevenfold, and The Wispy Silver Breath of Flaming Passion in a Sunny Meadow For My Beloved (another one of those dumb one-hit wonder punk bands that sound just like the other twenty thousand). Chains and washed-out shadowy photographs with a terrible case of the angles decorated gray bulletin boards and wrinkled Hot Topic shirts littered the ground and the back of an overstuffed black upholstered chair, where a very depressed being was currently sprawled out upside down.

The tower's sole humanoid occupant was an experienced brooder for his age. Not quite so experienced as his old friend Tabitha had been, but with the unfortunate demise of the lycanthropic melodramatic, he was now in the top spot. Tabitha had always been a good friend of his... or the closest thing he had to one, anyway, as it was plainly obvious that nobody cared whether he lived or died. But now Tabitha was gone, and it was so hard being at the top, alone.

He was off for the day, which left him with nothing to do but mope. He would have been brooding, but out of respect for Tabitha, he decided to abstain from that for awhile. He'd have to stick with moping, glowering, languishing, pouting, and sulking until nightfall, which was the only time of day that matched his dark soul.

Suddenly, the Seme was interrupted from his gloomy thoughts by a shrill beeping noise. He glanced up at the monitor before him and sighed heavily to see an unfamiliar signal beeping. Something had just entered the world's atmosphere. Something was zipping through the sky on its way to the city. Something that would add to the misery of his already horrid day, week, and existence in general.

With an immense groan, he reached out of his chair for a gothic-styled telephone, one of the old ones with the turning dial instead of buttons. Unfortunately, it was rather difficult to turn the number dial while upside down and sprawled out, so he ended up having to shift quite a bit to reach the speed dial. After a moment or two of ringing, the other end picked up.

 _"Hello?"_ a soft voice asked tentatively.

The Seme sighed heavily.

"Candlekins, they're on their way." the Seme replied.

 _"ISH THAT SHO? I'LL HAVE TO READY MY SHPEDOODLEPANTIES!"_ Candlekins squealed in excitement.

"You do that. I haven't got the will to deal with them. It's all too much effort." the Seme muttered.

 _"FIGHTING EVIL BY MOONLIGHT! WINNING LOOOVE BY DAYLIGHT! Clorox bleach turned all my hair white! I AM THE ONE CALLED MISSES SPOON!"_ Candlekins shouted.

"You're an idiot." the Seme said.

Candlekins howled with laughter.

 _"Awww, WHY SO BLUE, PANDA BEAR? Dun be sho shad! CANDLEKINSOMGOVER9000BBQVCR will deal with them and be done in time for CAPTAIN KANGAROO!"_ Candlekins said.

With a final maniacal cackle, Candlekins hung up on her end and Swizzle's Seme sighed yet again, replacing the handset and sprawling out on the chair to wallow in despair.

Great. Those three were there. Now they were all in deep trouble.

* * *

Imagine, if you will, the paint aisle of a hardware store. More specifically, the shelves upon which the paint sampler swatches are stacked.

Imagine somehow taking every paint color in those sampling swatches and turning the intensity up a thousandfold, past the threshold of visible light and far more intense than the spectrum they use for coloring children's TV shows. We are talking some intense color here. Liberace's rainbow sequin disco suit in stadium lightning intense

Imagine taking every one of those intense-beyond-intensity colors and mixing them all together into one gigantic can of paint, with the colors staying separated but also running together to make even more colors, colors that have never before been fathomed by the human imagination. Every color in the infinitely possible spectrum from Red to Violet, from Mother of Pearl to Macaroni and Cheese, from Baby Poo Green to That Color They Say The Universe Is Teal.

Now imagine loading that paint into the bucket of a fire helicopter and spraying it haphazardly all over a major metropolitan area and the surrounding landscape.

If your imagination is lacking today, suffice it to say that Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle landed on a world that was garishly colorful.

It took five minutes or so for them to allow their eyes to adjust. Other than the nauseating color scheme, the world did not appear too terribly different than the suburban part of OC City. Shops and homes stood along a central street, pleasantly crowded with all manner of zany characters and creatures, each odder than the last. In the distance floating over what appeared to be a city park was a tall and equally colorful steel tower, impressively suspended over the ground by an elaborate anti-gravity device and slowly following some preset orbit, lazily making it's way east. Rainbow-colored clouds drifted through a Technicolor sky, pouring some grainy white rain down on the landscape, coating purple trees and orange streets and colorful buildings in a fine layer of "snow". Llamas could be found in every direction and the scent of cheese wafted through the air. Monkeys worked on a long line of typewriters down Main Street. Cellophane flowers of yellow and green towered over your head. And there in the central square of the little city block, standing up high above the wacky cars and trees and people, was a large sign.

 **WELCOME TO VACILLATION FALLS**

"Let me guess before we get any further in. This is what happens when 'clever' young writers 'cleverly' create a 'clever' world which features the 'clever' insertion of their 'clever' sense of humor." Crumbelina said after a long moment of stunned silence.

"And 'cleverly' assume that by 'clever' humor, they mean idiotic driveling that they pull out of nowhere and cobble together in a grotesque mishmash of what they assume to be grade A 'clever' material." Adorabeezle added.

"And then they 'cleverly' share these things with the world by 'cleverly' sticking some combination of the words 'random' and 'crack' in the summary, 'cleverly' protecting them from any criticism that may result by setting up a 'clever' defense at why their feeble attempts at 'clever' humor are moronic and appallingly bad?" Minty asked.

They glanced at each other for a few quiet seconds.

"My, wasn't that preachy?" Crumbelina asked with a smirk.

Adorabeezle lifted her hands and caught a small sample of the white substance raining down upon the landscape. She put her tongue to it and sensed the immediate sharp sweetness of pure sugar, something she and the other two recognized quite well. She sighed irritably.

"May I be the first to offer the sincere hope that this voyage is very short?" Adorabeezle asked.

"Yes, yes you may." Crumbelina replied.

Minty glanced down at the beeping world guidebook.

"Bad news, girls. There's two signals here." Minty said.

"Two signals of what?" Adorabeezle asked, not sounding the slightest bit pleased at the news.

"Two Semes. One nearby and one extremely far away." Minty replied grimly.

Adorabeezle groaned and buried her face in her palm.

"Any telling who they are?" Crumbelina asked.

Minty shrugged.

"No. But the list is growing rather short, after all. It shouldn't be too difficult. We can take care of the Seme nearest to us first, and then head across the world a little ways to deal with the other." Minty replied.

"Very well. But I swear, if there are any sophomoric attempts at 'humor' while I'm here..." Adorabeezle started to say with a resigned sigh.

She was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a purple llama on a scooter, zipping past the trio on the very walkway they were standing on. It shrieked something unintelligible at the top of it's lungs and sped away, cackling maniacally and singing old show tunes.

"Like that one, I will not hesitate to kill something." Adorabeezle said.

"That wasn't funny. Unexpected, yes. Strange, yes, but hardly what I would call amusing. You could stick just about anything in it's place for the same reaction. You could have manatees pushing rubber balls with jokes written on them into a slot and get similar results." Crumbelina said in a dead tone of voice as they watched the llama disappear into the distance.

"Ah, a reference to a popular television show making fun of another popular television show. That is moderately funny." Minty said.

Adorabeezle sighed.

"Indeed. Far more amusing than this inexplicable obsession there seems to be with llamas." Adorabeezle said.

"HIDEY-HO, ADORABEEZLE!" a small anthropomorphic chocolate cake said cheerfully, materializing out of nowhere to tug on the side of Adorabeezle's jacket.

With a scream of terror, Adorabeezle punted the little thing across the way and into a river, panting and gasping for breath.

"Now, see, that was funny. Having a cake of all things appear to frighten Adorabeezle is amusing, based on past assumptions we have made about her and her current feelings on the subject of cake." Crumbelina said, gesturing in the direction the cake had flown.

"That was not in any way funny!" Adorabeezle snarled furiously, looking about ready to rip Crumbelina's hair out by the handful.

Crumbelina laughed slightly.

"Oh, but see, it was. Had it been any other type of dessert or even a creature or animal, it wouldn't have been funny at all." Crumbelina said.

"Still preachy. Let's try hiding the messages in amusing metaphors and drawn-out jokes." Minty said.

Crumbelina shrugged.

"The usual, hmm? Sounds just fine to me." Crumbelina said.

Adorabeezle dusted off her jacket and brushed her hair back out of her eyes in a huff.

"Let's get down to business. We'd better start pinpointing and following that signal if we ever want to get out of this hellhole. What direction is it coming from, Minty?" Adorabeezle asked.

Minty studied the back of the guidebook and finally pointed.

"Here. Due west. Not terribly far. In fact, I would hazard to guess it may be coming from that rather conspicuous floating tower there. That looks like a rather obvious place for a Seme to be, doesn't it?" Minty asked.

"Indeed." Crumbelina replied, staring up at the tower hovering over the park a short distance away.

"I must admit, I'm curious." Adorabeezle said as the three of them set off towards the tower in the distance.

"About what?" Minty asked.

Adorabeezle pursed her lips slightly and gestured over at the tremendous sign sticking up over the rainbow-colored buildings and trees.

"The name of this world. It's Vacillation Falls, correct? That would imply some sort of wavering quality to the world, or some kind of switching back-and-forth." Adorabeezle replied.

"What about it? What could be so terribly wavering about a world centered around failed attempts at random humor?" Crumbelina asked.


	17. Candlekins

**Chapter 17: Candlekins**

 _Note: Part of Candlehead's Seme's appearance is owned by Mangle6._

* * *

Currently in charge of the world of Vacillation Falls was the loud fellow that Swizzle's Seme had spoken to on the phone earlier. CANDLEKINSOMGOVER9000BBQVCR, or Candlekins for short. She did indeed reside in the floating tower that Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle were heading towards.

She was currently taking a bath in a turtle-shaped sandbox that was filled to the brim with aquarium rocks, amusing herself by blowing bubbles with her spit. She was vaguely aware that there were three beings on the surface of her world that sought to do her harm, but she honestly couldn't be bothered at the moment. That Swizzie-poo was such a worrywart. All he ever did was call up Candlekins complaining that his "sooooul huuuurt", or his "woooounds just would not heeeeal", or that he "loooonged for the sweet release of deaaaaath".

Swizzie-poo was BORING.

Candlekins was by all accounts a spastic fellow, though some could have deigned her behavior merely "quirky". A far more popular descriptor of her included the words "shrieking abhorrently obnoxious infantile twit". She bore only a passing resemblance to the racer that had spawned her, her demi-mullet decorated with what appeared to be paintbrush swatches of random colors. She also appeared to have given herself tattoos with a box of magic markers, as there was not an inch of her skin left untouched by cheerful scribblings of kittens, rainbows, sunshine, cheese, pants, llamas, and purple monkeys. She also had a big golden candle on her head that never went out, her eyes were blood-red, her hair was a pale white, and she usually wore a lemon yellow sun dress.

It had been apparent since the day the Semes were born that Candlekins was different than her brethren. They had their quirks, each and every one of them, but she was the only one dubbed by the Superior to be completely incapable of handling an entire world all by herself. As a result, she assigned a very unenthused Swizzie-poo to accompany Candlekins down to Vacillation Falls and share the world with her in a complex arrangement.

Candlekins smiled as she managed a rather large bubble of her saliva. She leaned her head back against the edge of the sandbox and gazed lazily up at the strobe-lit ceiling with the plastic glow in the dark planets stuck up there. How she loved those planets. She had quite a difficult evening the previous night upon discovering that they had taken Pluto off the list of planets, and in her fury, she had swallowed the tiny celestial body. But there were far more important matters to attend to. Candlekins raised her fist and snapped her fingers. A trio of rainbow-colored Probuus that looked like small winged cows appeared above her, answering their mistress's call with a grunting "MOO.".

"Fudge, those TERRIBLE Sugar Rushers are coming to harm me. Be my shpeshul heartypants and go DESTROY them, pretty plz?" Candlekins asked dramatically to the center one, kicking her feet up out of the sandbox and rolling over.

"MOO." the Probus, who was apparently named Fudge, replied.

Candlekins expressed dismay.

"What? You changed your name to Poodlepants?" Candlekins asked.

"MOO!" Fudge replied.

"Oh! No, your brother-in-law is in town on business! That's wonderful! Well tell him if he wants to go to the oyster bar with us he'll have to provide his own tandem bicycle, 'cuz we're all out of room once we pack on Moira and Olae and Xipe-Toltec." Candlekins said happily.

"MOO?" Fudge asked.

Candlekins squealed with glee and hopped out of the sandbox, spraying aquarium rocks everywhere and prancing over to the coat rack to get her sun dress and tutu.

"BWAHAHAHAHAH! We'll show Swizzie-poo-doodle-pantsy-pookie-pie-Mcdark who's the REAL PERSON around here!" Candlekins said.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and burst into hysterical giggles, primping her hair and puckering her lips.

"Yes, Derez, I don't care HOW you do it, but make sure those crankypants meanie-heads are dead before they get up here! Or rather that they don't get up here because they can't get up here if they're dead. Unless you carry them. Ooh, on second thought, bring them to me and I'll deal with them myself! With RELISH!" Candlekins said.

She cackled maniacally and held up a jar of sweet pickle relish. Yes, there was no mistaking the pure evil that radiated from the depths of her non-existent Seme soul. Candlekins interrupted her peals of evil laughter suddenly, whipping her head from right-to-left.

"Did you hear that? Somebody has penetrated the outer defenses of my impenetrable tower of IMPENETRABILITY!" Candlekins exclaimed.

Fudge looked up in alarm.

"MOO?" Fudge asked.

Candlekins dropped to the ground and put her ear to the floor.

"YES! YES! I can feel it coming back again! Like a roll of thunder chasing the wind! Oh, I feel it! I feel the cosmos!" Candlekins replied.

"MOO?" Fudge asked.

Candlekins held up a bit of plastic that could vaguely resemble the cosmos.

"Right here, see? The cosmos piece fell off of my glow in the dark planet set and I've been looking for it everywhere. Oh yes, and it seems those noodly nuisance Sugar Rushers have entered my lair! You and your friends go down and give them a warm welcome!" Candlekins replied.

The three Probus nodded and headed towards the door down into the stairwell of the tower. Before they vanished, their leader glanced back to see Candlekins wrapping her head in a healthy layer of aluminum foil.

"I am activating the tower's defenses! WHEEEE!" Candlekins shrieked stupidly.

Fudge rolled her eyes and gestured for her comrades to keep going and leave their diminutive mistress to... whatever she was doing.

* * *

The interior of Candlekin's tower didn't look too terribly different than the outside. Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle appeared horribly out of place inside the zany tower, their appearances in a sea of extravagant paint. They were making their way slowly up the spiral staircase around the outside of the tower, glancing warily at the many central floors of the tower and the insanity they housed.

"They don't appear to be Probus. Just... oddly placed kitchen appliances and bizarre animals." Adorabeezle said in a quiet voice, trying to keep their presence in the tower a low-key affair.

"Lots of sugar as well." Minty said, brushing away the powder building up on her head and shoulders like so much high-calorie dandruff.

"This is still, of course, somebody's mistaken ideas about what constitutes as 'humor'." Crumbelina said ill-temperedly.

It would take hours to get all the sugar out of her hair.

"Who would find any of this funny?" Adorabeezle asked, throwing her hands up in frustration as they passed a washing machine that bounced like an El Camino with hydraulics, blasting out "La Cucaracha".

"It's hard telling, but I know this sort of imagination is more or less effortless." Minty replied.

They continued on their way up the tower. Near the top floor, the stairs leveled out into a wide platform that crossed the tower's diameter. It was decorated in the style of a very odd garden, with tall statues of ironing boards and one regal depiction of Chad Kroeger. Flowers lined a long winding path across the floor to the elevators at the far end, and the fact that they were colorful should be quickly assumed. Confetti and pretzels were scattered liberally across the grounds and elevator music piped out of a speaker system from the walls. Crumbelina tested the elevator doors and found that they were locked, the call button unresponsive. A fairly obvious keyhole was set below the button, with the key being absent from the hook that should have held it.

"Well, now what?" Minty asked, crossing her arms in puzzlement.

"This would, of course, be an opportune time for some kind of horrible Probus monster to appear from behind us and display the key hidden on a ribbon around it's neck, requiring us to utterly destroy it before we can move on." Adorabeezle replied.

"HAAAA!" a shrill noise cried from behind.

Crumbelina winced without turning quite yet.

"Darn it, Adorabeezle, I hate it when you're right!" Crumbelina said.

Minty sighed.

"We turn on three. One, two..." Minty started to say.

But as soon as they turned around, they found themselves staring back at an adorable waist-high little bugger with yellow skin, swirly eyes, fuzzy hair, and an apple juice box clutched in it's spindly hands.

"I HAVE GINGIVITIS! I LIKE CEREAL!" the creature said proudly.

It did not, however, have the key around it's neck. Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle sighed with relief.

"GRRARRGGHGNGGHGH!" something climbing up the inside wall of the tower from behind the little creature roared.

"IT'S A LLAMA!" the yellow creature screamed.

It tore away as fast as it's tiny legs would carry it.

"It certainly is." Crumbelina said.

The creature placed a gigantic hoof on the garden platform, slowly pulling itself up to face the intruders. It was actually not so much a llama, as it was some kind of mutated mass of rainbow-colored goo, which happened to have a llama sticking out of the front end. The fearsome pack animal bleated in rage and the rest of the goo began to boil and churn around it. More bleating llamas began to form out of the sludge as it continued it's ascent up onto the platform.

"It's a llama." Adorabeezle said.

"There's a llama." Minty said.

"And another little llama." Crumbelina added.

"Fuzzy llama." Minty said.

"Funny llama." Crumbelina said.

"Llama..." Minty started to say.

"Llama..." Crumbelina started to say.

"DUCK!" Adorabeezle yelled.

All three of them hit the deck as a wide arm formed out of the oozing mass, transfiguring itself into a blade and swinging wildly as though to decapitate the three intruders.

"Oh, I see. It can transform into random things in the heat of battle." Crumbelina said.

"Now it's a dishwasher." Minty said, dodging a sudden barrage of frilly pink teacups .

Crumbelina sighed.

"That's not very funny. The teacups are a nice touch, but it's just too out of left field." Crumbelina said.

"Well, would you prefer it turn into something tremendous with sharp teeth and fire breathing capabilities?" Adorabeezle asked.

The shape shifting blob suddenly quivered and turned itself into a four-tier wedding cake with buttercream icing and candy pastilles. Adorabeezle screamed in horror.

"Now see, that was funny. By now, the cake has become a running joke at the expense of poor Adorabeezle, you see. It will remain funny as many times as it happens." Crumbelina replied between bursts of laughter.

"It will NOT!" Adorabeezle snapped, brushing strings of sweat-soaked hair from her eyes.

Crumbelina grinned.

"Really, yes it will." Crumbelina said.

"Not as funny as it'll be when I rip both buns out of your thick skull and strangle you with them!" Adorabeezle sneered.

The blob then became a fearsome colossus with a microphone-turned spiked club in one hand and the other hand forming into sharp claws ripe for the impaling.

"Right, let's do this. Diversionary Tactic Three followed by Combined Attack Sixty-Six, finishing with a triple combination if it comes to that. Prioritizing offense with rising defense should it fail. Sound good?" Crumbelina asked.

"Golden." Adorabeezle replied.

"And keep an eye out for the key." Minty added.

They broke into formation. Crumbelina threw her hands to the side and rose into the air in a caramel whirlwind to meet the colossus face-to-face. It growled ferociously and took a few swings at her, all of which she deflected or dodged, starting to send caramel-shaped spikes out one by one to swipe at it's face or hands. Meanwhile, down on the ground and out of the creature's sight thanks to Crumbelina, Minty was helping Adorabeezle with what looked to be a spinning and glowing orb of ice that swirled together and grew bigger and bigger, rising up into the air and slowly taking a physical shape.

"Crumbelina, bring it this way!" Minty yelled.

Crumbelina nodded and flew off to one side. The colossus lunged after her and ran nearly face-first into the developing attack.

"And NOW!" Minty shouted.

Adorabeezle dropped her hands and the attack suddenly exploded, showering six thousand pounds of snow and ice, an impressive avalanche that knocked the colossus down to the ground and buried it. By the time Crumbelina landed back on the platform, Minty had transformed into her Minty Sakura form, shifted into the form of a stone generator that generated the hardest stone summonable, and then had shifted into the form of a crane and hurriedly entombed the icy mound, monster and all, in a thick layer of stone before transforming back into her normal form.

"Very nice work, girls." Crumbelina said.

Adorabeezle tossed her head slightly and brushed herself off.

"Thank you. The key, Minty?" Adorabeezle asked.

Minty kneeled and placed one hand on the stone, a moment later drawing it away with the key in hand.

"Right here." Minty replied.

Crumbelina glanced over at the mound that had been their enemy.

"That was almost too easy." Crumbelina said.

"Please don't say something amusingly ironic about it bouncing back with twice the power and invulnerability, because you know that it will happen exactly as you say just for laughs." Adorabeezle said.

"Let's just get in the elevator and get on with it. According to the guidebook, the Seme's chambers is right above us." Minty said, already putting the key into the keyhole and turning it to restart the elevator.

"The sooner we deal with this Seme, the sooner we can get out of this hellhole and it's idiotic attempts at being funny." Adorabeezle said, shoving the elevator door open and stepping inside.

The doors closed.

* * *

The elevator began it's slow ascent up to the top of the tower, where Candlekins, her head wrapped in tinfoil and wielding a broom handle, was rocking out hardcore.

"SHOOTIN' AT THE WALLS OF HEARTACHE, BANG BANG! I am... The Warrior!" Candlekins howled.

"And why am I not surprised it's Candlehead's Seme?" Crumbelina asked.

"I saw that coming a mile away." Adorabeezle replied.

"Candlehead! We've come to take you back where you belong!" Minty shouted to get the oddball's attention.

"They're coming to take me away! HA HA! HO HO! HEE HEE! To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're coming to take me AWAAAAY!" Candlekins shouted.

She didn't seem to have heard them come in, and it wasn't until she saw the three of them standing in the doorway of her equally spastic loft that she seemed to have a problem.

"Ah! YOU! Mr. Yagel warned me about you!" Candlekins said.

"We want to make this nice and quick, Candlehead-whatever-you're-calling-yourself. Just hold still and we'll have you in the Tupperware with the others in no time." Crumbelina said.

"Mmmm, I don't wanna go in the Tupperware. It smells like spaghetti in there and I'm allergic to OREGON." Candlekins said, scratching her hair beneath her tinfoil helmet.

"You aren't being given a choice, I'm afraid." Adorabeezle said.

"Now stand up and fight, or stay there and we'll take care of you." Minty ordered.

Something wicked suddenly glinted in Candlekins's eyes. She grinned and backed up towards a control panel at the far end of the room.

"I'm afraid that your taking care of will not be occurring this evening! Bwahah!" Candlekins said.

She snapped her fingers before turning to rapidly punch commands into the control panel.

"STELLAAAAA! KILL THEM!" Candlekins yelled.

Fudge the Probus and the two other Moo Probus appeared in short puffs of smoke, and she turned on Candlekins, mooing indignantly. Candlekins gasped.

"What? Oh, what's that? You're going to Las Vegas to marry the vacuum and you can't do it unless you get an annulment from Lawrence Fishburne?" Candlekins asked.

"MOO!" Fudge replied.

"Oh! I'm very well aware your name is Fudge, darling. Now destroy the intruders." Candlekins ordered.

Fudge rolled her eyes and gestured towards the three intruders. Her Moo Probus companions let out long grunts and prepared their attack.

"I feel stupider for having witnessed that." Adorabeezle said.

"You're not the only one." Crumbelina said.

"EGADS! I'M RUNNING OUT OF TIME! The sun is almost setting!" Candlekins suddenly screamed, glancing out the window.

Though Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle would have loved to know exactly what Candlekins meant by that, they were immediately distracted by the onslaught of Moo Probus that began pouring in from smoky portals on all sides of the room, charging at them with horns and hooves and udders ablaze with fury. Unfortunately for Candlekins, the Moo Probus were a terribly weak little species, and it didn't take much work at all for Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle to smash through their illogical ranks in a minimal amount of time, leaving nothing but the turtle sandbox standing between Candlekins and her impending doom. Fudge, however, survived because she had a name and was therefore loved by all.

"Ah... ah... POTATO!" Candlekins yelled, pointing across the room.

"That's not going to work, Candlehead. Now hold still and we'll make it quick." Minty said seriously, narrowing her eyes at the freakish incarnation of her friend.

"YOU'RE TOO LATE! I am destroying this tower with you inside of it! You'll be CRUSHED TO DEATH beneath TONS of RAINBOW-COLORED STEEL! You'll go CRASHING through the sky of Vacillation Falls, screaming in a GIANT FIREBALL until it EXPLODES upon impact and ALL THREE OF YOU DIE INSTANTLY! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!" Candlekins shouted, not sounding as obnoxiously random as she had a moment ago, her voice laced with poison as she extended an accusatory finger at the three of them.

Sure enough, a large digital clock display lit up on top of the control panel, giving the Sugar Rushers only three minutes to get their business done with and get out of the tower. The three of them looked decidedly unconcerned about that. They could, after all, use a portal key to teleport out.

"One minor problem. You're in the tower too. You'll die along with us." Adorabeezle said.

"Oh... right! Heheehee, I'm such a SQUISHBRAIN! Oh, well! Only one thing to do now!" Candlekins said.

"Give up?" Crumbelina asked.

"No! PRESS THE MAGIC BUTTON!" Candlekins replied.

She reached over to the control panel and pressed a button, which shot a bright light out of a small spotlight and engulfed her in what appeared to be a tractor beam.

"HAHA, YOU SUCKERS! I AM TELEPORTING OVER TO STAY WITH MY GOOD FRIEND SWIZZIE-POO AND NOW YOU THREE WILL DIE!" Candlekins yelled.

Minty lunged to try and keep her from escaping, but Candlekins's body already appeared to have been phased out by the teleporter and she went right through. She quickly recovered back to her feet in time to see Candlekins disappear from the room with ominous final words.

"HAVE FUN AFTER DARK, POODLEPANTS! BWAHAHAHAHAHAA!" Candlekins yelled.

Crumbelina growled furiously.

"Darn it! We lost her!" Crumbelina snapped.

"She's be at the other tower with, apparently, Swizzle's Seme. But we have more pressing matters, such as escaping from this tower." Adorabeezle said.

"What did she mean by 'after dark'?" Minty asked.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let's get out of here." Adorabeezle replied.

The three of them vanished into a portal created from her portal key, leaving the Rainbow Tower to explode back into the shiny rainbow glitter it had apparently been created from.

* * *

In the second darkest tower in Fandom Heights, now hovering just on the edge of the city limits of Vacillation Falls, Swizzie-poo was preparing for nightfall. The darkness of the night was the only time he felt that his spirit could properly flourish. He felt whole at night, when the world of Vacillation Falls was under his control. The tower was hovering carefully just along the border of the shadow of night, just out of reach of the setting sun's light.

Swizzie-poo adjusted the oversized robes that covered his black tanktop and baggy pants with straps belting the legs together in six different places. His chains jangled and his spiked collar looked divine as the light drained away outside. A slow evil grin crossed his face as the land twisted under cover of night. And suddenly, a scream echoed throughout the tower. Swizzie-poo's face sank immensely, and you could almost hear his emo little spirit being crushed beneath the boot heel of his annoying comrade-in-arms spending the night with him.

* * *

Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle had observant eyes. They had landed somewhere in the middle of the central park area, and from the hill in the center of the park, they could see shadows overtaking the land in the distance, and the landscape twisting around the darkness.

"What on earth is going on?" Crumbelina asked in a voice that held the hint of distant dread.

Adorabeezle stared at the approaching wall of shadows.

"I don't know, but I don't like it at all." Adorabeezle replied.

"Girls, there's something you need to see." Minty said.

She diverted their attention over a large tree that turned out not to be a large tree, but to be the signpost of the immense VACILLATION FALLS sign they had seen from a distance earlier. For the first time, they could make out a small plaque on the bottom part of the signpost, inscribed with small scribbly writing. The three of them rushed over to the sign and leaned forward to read it as the light around them faded.

 **WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF VACILLATION HEIGHTS.**

 **Your Esteemed Overlords As Assigned by the Grandmaster Fanboy, CandlekinsOMGOVER9000BBQVCR and Swizzie-poo, extend to you a warm handshake of welcome and remind you that MINDLESS CONFORMITY is our chiefly regarded system of operation here. We hope you will enjoy your stay!**

 **Due to labor disputes and the fact that one of Your Esteemed Overlords is too stupid to tie her own shoes, leadership of this world will be divided into two preset periods of time: DAY and NIGHT. During the DAY, you will be lorded over by Your Esteemed Overlord Candlekins and her Reverence For All Things Random and Cracky. During the NIGHT, you will be lorded over by Your Esteemed Overlord Swizzie-poo and his Reverence For All Things Dark and Angsty.**

 **To ease the objection and frustration that this may cause in you, Our Loving Subjects, we have installed a mechanism that will put you and the landscape both in the proper mindset for your Current Esteemed Overlord. Mechanism will take effect every twelve hours at precisely 6:00 and will be mostly painless. Any complaints about the Mechanism process shall be discussed with Swizzie-poo and Candlekins and followed by your immediate torturous death.**

 **Have A Wonderful Day, and A Horrible and Depressing Night!**

Once all three Sugar Rushers had backed away from the sign and regarded each other with concerned glances, Crumbelina was the first to speak.

"So let me get this straight. When darkness washes over us, we're going to be brainwashed into mindlessly depressed and whiny versions of ourselves?" Crumbelina asked in a dead sort of voice.

"Sounds about right." Adorabeezle replied in an equally lifeless tone.

"But only until daybreak, when we will turn into insane random 'crack' beings like the rest of the pathetic souls we've been encountering all day?" Crumbelina asked, still without a trace of life in her voice.

"I think that's the gist of it." Adorabeezle replied.

"Oh boy." Minty muttered.

"Now, now. There must be some way out of this." Crumbelina said, ushering for the other two to follow her as she made a beeline east to put some distance between them and their impending angsty brainwashing in the wave of shadow.

"I'm not willing to count on thinking of something later! We've got to put a stop to this nonsense before we end up trapped on this world forever!" Adorabeezle snapped.

"Strong minds, girls. We have to stay calm and remain strong! If we panic, we'll be lost. We've just got to keep clear heads about this." Minty said.

They turned to watch the trees across the park from them losing all trace of color, except drab lifeless gray. The branches drooped, the leaves fell, and the trees were coated in a thick layer of sudden rain. The landscape touched by shadow was dead, barren, and depressing, with run-down buildings and miserable-looking inhabitants freezing to death on the street corners and wrapped in ragged cloaks. It looked like somebody had driven through with a boombox blasting "Helena". Even the grass was depressed to death.

"Keep focused on the objective! We must get inside that tower, kill the Semes, and get off of this world. We're going to restore Sugar Rush. Keep your minds clear and strong, we can fight this. We're going to finish this!" Minty said, still inching back and away from the advancing darkness.

"It's getting closer." Crumbelina said.

"We can't outrun it. We don't have time to call the ship." Adorabeezle said.

"Keep focused! Remember, we've got to keep focused! What matters is what we have to do and not what we feel. Everybody brace yourselves." Minty said.

And they were suddenly overtaken by the wall of shadow, darkening and killing the grass beneath their feet and the trees alongside them. The colors vanished into grays, browns, and cold blacks, the rainbow water in the fountains turned scummy, the flowers died, and the world was left a depressing shade of it's former self, leaving nothing but whining angst in their wake.


	18. Dark World

**Chapter 18: Dark World**

When we last left Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle, they had just been swept over by an evil wave of darkness that would, according to the laws of the world, sweep over them and transform their every happy, angry, annoyed, and ambivalent feelings into Evangelion™ Brand 100 Pure Angst, No Artificial Colors.

That sounded like quite a dangerous situation. If the three were busy angsting heavily about their own problems, how would they hunt down Swizzle and Candlehead's Semes, before travelling onward on their journey to destroy the Semes, liberate Fandom Heights, and restore Sugar Rush back to it's proper state? Would they be trapped here in Vacillation Falls for the rest of their miserable lives, wandering the streets and sobbing, crying, and whining things like "You develop a broken heart, but you're born with a broken soul"? Would Crumbelina comb her hair over her eyes and piece her ears with a safety pin? Would Adorabeezle dye her hair black and wear an extensive amount of makeup? Would Minty cut holes in the knees of her skirt and write lame poetry?

Those of you who are more studious may have taken the gap between chapters to write out an in-depth research paper regarding the effect of evil worldly angst-waves on game characters, describing your own twisted reality in which somehow this would wipe the three Sugar Rushers personalities completely, leaving them empty and open to corruption into the master plan of the Grandmaster Fanboy and his Seme pawns. Some of you may have even lay awake at night, wondering what would become of the three Sugar Rushers, fraught with worry.

Unfortunately for all of you, you have forgotten that Sugar Rushers have matrixes, not hearts, and that matrixes work differently from hearts and don't have quite the same functions. Therefore, there is nothing for an evil worldly angst-wave to wipe out and transform into soul-killing angst.

"That's a relief." Minty said.

She, Crumbelina, and Adorabeezle picked themselves up off the ground, none the worse for wear, and examined their new surroundings. What had before been an obnoxiously colorful wackyland where anything could happen had become a desolate wasteland, a landscape of grays, browns, blacks, and more grays. Plants and trees laid dried up and dead in the brown fields, and the buildings were run down with boarded-up windows and cracked doors swinging on creaky hinges. Beings that had before been colorful llamas, silly creatures on scooters, and happy little elves frolicking happily had become pale, weak, sickly shades of their former selves, leaning in the alleys and occasionally playing melancholy tunes on squeaky harmonicas. And ushering in the woe, floating high above them in the air, was the second darkest tower in all of Fandom Heights.

"One tower down, one to go." Crumbelina said, her hair fluttering in the cold wind as the three of them surveyed the approaching citadel.

"Sure enough, two Semes are residing in that tower. Candlehead's, and as she mentioned, Swizzle's." Adorabeezle said, checking the signal in the back of the world guidebook.

"Look at it this way. Nothing can be worse than what we encountered back in the last world." Minty said optimistically.

"What you encountered? Pardon if I fail to sympathize with you two for the horrors you endured. I, on the other hand, am never going to hear the end of mine." Adorabeezle said.

"Nonsense, Adorabeezle. It can't stay funny forever." Crumbelina said.

"It's become a running joke! It's ensured to be popping up constantly at least until the end of this journey!" Adorabeezle snapped.

"Now really isn't the time, Adorabeezle." Minty said.

"We're going to encounter the one that caused all of this sometime, I just know it. And when we do, I am going to beat them senseless." Adorabeezle said, mostly to herself.

* * *

Speaking of beating people senseless, Swizzie-poo could honestly sympathize with Adorabeezle's violent urges.

At the moment, he was doing his best to finish his evening brooding, which was an event that took place from six o'clock to six-thirty every night without fail. It was absolutely vital to the rest of his schedule that the evening brooding took place precisely at six o'clock with no interruptions. Otherwise, he would not have time for his six-thirty angsting, his seven o'clock moaning, his half-hour soak in the tub (in the dark, with black candles and special incense) at seven-thirty, House at eight o'clock, and then a three hour bout of feeling sorry for himself. And it was very difficult to finish your evening brooding when your Evanescence CD is being constantly interrupted by screeching, crashing, and banging noises coming from the direction of your boudoir.

"Candlekins!" Swizzie-poo yelled irritably, rubbing his mascara-stained tears off his face just as they had gotten the way he liked them.

 _"YEEES?"_ Candlekins asked the other room, accompanied by the sound of Swizzie-poo's mattress snapping in half.

"I told you to stay out of my boudoir!" Swizzie-poo shouted.

 _"OKAAAAAY."_ Candlekins said.

With the sound of his precious sarcastic Hot Topic t-shirt collection scattering out of it's velvet-lined drawer and into the ceiling fan, Swizzie-poo placed a hand to his forehead.

"That means get OUT!" Swizzie-poo yelled.

 _"Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"_ Candlekins said.

She slumped out of the room, tattoos of kittens drawn in black eyeliner smudged all over her, and her head shoved through the armhole of Swizzie-poo's favorite and cleverest shirt. "You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because you're all the same.", it read. Oh, the mirth of the irony in that garment.

"And get your disgusting body away from my things! That eyeliner is EXPENSIVE! Agh! You just don't UNDERSTAND ME!" Swizzie-poo hissed, pointing a black nail-polished finger at her.

Candlekins tilted her head in fascination as Swizzie-poo resumed his brooding, crumpling in on himself and curling into the fetal position on the floor, before starting to gourge himself on a half pint of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.

"Swizzywexymexytexy?" Candlekins asked curiously, leaning down over Swizzie-poo's shoulder.

"Go away. I'm releasing my pain." Swizzie-poo replied.

"Why?" Candlekins asked.

"Because I want to." Swizzie-poo replied.

"Why?" Candlekins asked.

"Because it eases the pain of my aching soul." Swizzie-poo replied.

"Why?" Candlekins asked.

"Because it expresses my inner anguish." Swizzie-poo replied.

"Why?" Candlekins asked.

"Because it allows me to get out the feelings I am bottling up inside myself that would otherwise rot me to the core... though they are halfway there." Swizzie-poo replied.

"Why?" Candlekins asked.

"Because I haven't been brooding enough." Swizzie-poo replied.

"Why?" Candlekins asked.

"Because I have to put up with you." Swizzie-poo replied between clenched teeth.

"Whyyyy?" Candlekins asked.

"Because I pulled the worst lot in our entire organization and they all hate me." Swizzie-poo replied.

"Why?" Candlekins asked.

"Because they don't understand me." Swizzie-poo replied.

"Why?" Candlekins asked.

"Because they just don't, okay? And stop talking. I can't hear my brooding music." Swizzie-poo replied behind a mouthful of walnuts and fudge chunks.

 _YOU CRIED I'D WIPE AWAY ALL OF YOUR TEARS!_

 _WHEN YOU SCREAMED, I'D FIGHT AWAY AAAAALL OF YOUR..._

Candlekins eyed the stereo on the end table behind her mopey comrade and tilted her head at it, quizzically. Sure enough, Amy Lee was supplying enough angst for several people, surely enough to keep Swizzie-poo happily brooding for hours and hours. Well, if happily brooding was even possible, that is. Curiously, she reached over and pressed a shiny button.

 _ALL THESE MIXED EMOTIONS WE KEEP LOCKED AWAY LIKE STOLEN PEEAAAARLS!_

 _STOLEN PEARL DEVOTIONS WE KEEP LOCKED..._

Swizzie-poo screamed and leaped to his feet, flailing wildly until he knocked the stereo to the ground and sent the CD rattling across the floor. Then, he glared up at Candlekins with an expression of pure straight loathing. There were a few uneasy seconds of silence before Candlekins's giggling broke it's way into the conversation.

"You listen to Savage Garden?" Candlekins asked.

Even she understood the implications of such a thing, stifling hysterical giggles behind her hand and making loud snorting noises.

"I do NOT! Shut it! You don't get me! You wouldn't understand even if I DID listen to them! And I DON'T! I've never even heard that song!" Swizzie-poo snapped.

"Suuuuuuure. And I'm Ron Burgundy!" Candlekins said, slapping her knees in mirth.

There was an indignant gasping sound as Swizzie-poo stared in torment at his colleague, very abruptly knocking over the end table and screeching at the top of his lungs.

"I'M NOOOOT OKAAAY! I don't belong on this disgusting world with your disgusting sunshine and flowers and colors and... and..." Swizzie-poo started to scream, looking close to ripping his hair out.

He shoved a huge spoonful of ice cream in his mouth and his eyes turned red, black-stained tears starting to appear at the corner of his eyes.

"Everybody ALWAYS picks on me, and to top it all off, I HAVE TO SHARE THE WORLD WITH YOU, YOU DISGUSTING MARKER-EATING CROSS-EYED BUFFOON!" Swizzie-poo shrieked dramatically, spraying droplets of melted ice cream from his mouth in his tantrum.

"Hey, can I have some fishy crackers?" Candlekins asked.

That did it. With a melodramatic scream of torture and rage and pain from the very depths of his broken soul, the soul in which his rage and misery had festered and fermented for all of his short Seme life, and so much angst and torment he could no longer hold it in, the words burst forth.

"GET OUT! NOW! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND ME!" Swizzie-poo yelled.

The emotional Seme burst into tears and ran screaming into his boudoir, slamming the door behind him with the final insult, an explosive string of curses and a concluding note of "I HATE YOU!". Candlekins, meanwhile, picked up the CD off the floor, examined it closely, and then licked all the dust off of it.


	19. Basement

**Chapter 19: Basement**

"Well, this looks to be a painful endeavor." Adorabeezle said, eyeing the shrine to Jhonen Vasquez that greeted the trio as they made their way into the entrance hallway of the Second Darkest Tower.

"Oh, I don't know. With the way things are looking, this tower could actually turn out to be more humorous than the last one." Minty said.

"Particularly if we run into any cake." Crumbelina said snidely.

"That was uncalled for." Adorabeezle snapped.

The interior of the Second Darkest Tower looked like a particularly disheveled Hot Topic outlet. It was difficult to see the steel inner walls behind the shrouds of punk band posters, Emily the Strange merchandise, and Green Day throw pillows that had been tacked to the walls with glow in the dark neon black light pushpins. The stairs wound up along the outside of the tower, tracing around inner platforms as they had in the Rainbow Tower. However, these platforms, instead of being decorated with colorful creatures and craziness, stood as shrines to the inner pain of a whiny boy feeling the weight of the whole world on his scrawny prepubescent shoulders. The three females reached the top floor of the tower and the door that sealed the way into the chambers of Swizzie-poo without much difficulty.

"The door's locked. And there's no sign of a keyhole." Minty announced, testing the handle.

"There is a rather large indentation in the door up here. Perhaps this activates the locking mechanism." Crumbelina said, tracing around a circular dent with a finger.

"Oh for the love of nothing." Adorabeezle muttered.

"What's that about?" Minty asked.

Adorabeezle rolled her eyes in utter frustration.

"Don't you realize what this means? A large indentation in the door can only mean one thing. There's got to be something shaped like that around here that we use as a key." Adorabeezle replied.

"So?" Crumbelina asked.

"That object is going to be something absolutely nonsensical, like a stained glass toilet brush or some kind of giant holy insignia. And of course, it's not going to be anywhere nearby. Oh no, it's going to be locked up on the complete other end of the tower, behind six other locked doors, and also sealed by ridiculously complicated keys and puzzles. Maybe even pieces of keys and puzzles, which we will have to run off and fetch in the most ludicrous of places before we can even think about getting out of here." Adorabeezle replied.

Crumbelina chuckled.

"You're such a pessimist, Adorabeezle. We are Sugar Rushers. We're prepared for anything. What could possibly happen to keep us from opening this door within the next two minutes?" Crumbelina asked.

Minty pointed out to something scribbled in what appeared to be blood red nail polish, but was actually magic marker.

"There's an inscription on the wall here. It says 'To the depths of the basement, go those who do not hold the Red Basin'." Minty read.

"And just what is the Red Basin?" Crumbelina asked.

Her query fell on deaf ears, as Adorabeezle and Minty tumbled down six stories through a trap door that had opened precisely as Crumbelina had spoken. Conveniently enough, she was also a victim of the trap door.

* * *

"Where exactly are we falling?" Adorabeezle asked, brushing her hair out of her face as they fell.

"I don't know, but it's approaching quickly. A Dramatic Landing, ladies?" Minty asked.

"Let's." Crumbelina replied.

One slow-falling dramatic landing on their feet later, the three racers found themselves deep in the basement of the Second Darkest Tower.

"Wait a minute, this tower is floating in midair. A basement would require some kind of subterranean construction. How are we suddenly in a basement?" Crumbelina asked.

"I think the more important question is how we get back up." Minty replied, staring up at the last of the light from above as the tunnel sealed itself.

"How annoying. Tell me again, what does this have to do with angst?" Adorabeezle asked.

I hesitate to say." Minty replied, examining a very psychological mural on the wall.

The impossible basement chamber was dark, lit only by a few candles shaped like Foamy the Squirrel placed in odd corners of the room. The three females split up and began to hunt for a means to escape.

"I seem to have found an old piece of parchment." Crumbelina said.

"I found half of a squeezed lemon." Adorabeezle said.

"I've got a 100-watt lightbulb stuck in a broken Tiffany lamp." Minty said.

"Here is a bit of broken wire." Crumbelina said, holding it up between her fingers.

"A pair of pliers." Adorabeezle said, putting them in her pocket.

"A tube of superglue." Minty said, carefully making sure the cap was on.

"I've found a book of matches." Adorabeezle said.

"The funnel from an old phonograph." Minty said.

"A philosophy textbook." Crumbelina said.

"A Nalgene water bottle full of Goldfish crackers." Adorabeezle said.

"The keys to a 1997 Buick LeSabre with a teddy bear keychain on them." Minty said.

"A carton of liverwurst." Crumbelina said.

"Two sticks of butter." Adorabeezle said.

"Britney Spears' Greatest Hits." Minty said.

"Gracious, Minty, throw that away before it kills somebody." Crumbelina ordered quickly.

"Now we have a broken CD of Britney Spears' Greatest Hits." Minty said.

"And a partridge in a pear tree." Adorabeezle said.

"So, what shall we do with all this junk?" Crumbelina asked, scratching her chin in deep thought.

"Isn't it obvious?" Minty replied.

Thirty seconds later, the Apple Toffee themed girl tore open a massive hole in the wall, and they put their findings in a proper waste receptacle. All except the partridge in a pear tree, as the vase the tree was planted in had yet another inscription on the side alluding to the mysterious Red Basin.

"The Dark One comes in the dead of night / Red Basin in hand, he gives you a fright." Minty read as they continued down the dark corridor, hopefully on the way to a means up and out of the basement.

"The most frightening thing we've encountered so far is this poetry." Crumbelina said, tucking the Nalgene bottle into her jacket (group consensus had decided that you never know when you might get hungry for some Goldfish crackers).

"What is this Red Basin they keep alluding to?" Adorabeezle asked, as though trying to work out the problem in her head.

"Whatever it is, we have to find it to unlock the door upstairs. The guidebook isn't picking up any sort of signals to an exit. I suppose we'll just have to keep along this tunnel until we find one." Minty replied.

* * *

It was seven-thirty.

Swizzie-poo laid on his back in a piping hot bath, drenched in suds, mineral oils, and incense fumes with cucumbers over his eyes. Spooky music played in the background as he relaxed, in the midst of yet another particularly rigorous session of brooding.

"So, my trap door has been activated. That means that the Dark One has awakened to do my bidding. Hahahahahah." Swizzie-poo said to no one in particular.

He lifted one foot out of the water, curling his toes luxuriously and inhaling a deep breath of citrus-ginseng bath beads.

"No one has ever survived against the Dark One!" Swizzie-poo said.

Granted, no one had ever really tried to survive against the Dark One, but that meant the odds were a hundred percent in Swizzie-poo's favor. He knew he did the right thing in creating the Probus. Yes, the Dark One was truly a masterpiece of matrix-lacking technology. So meek and unassuming, until it utterly destroyed you. The Superior would surely congratulate Swizzie-poo on his efforts this time. Oh, and if only the rest of the Semes were still alive to see it. How they would PAY for what they had said and done to him.

The crease of a frown formed on Swizzie-poo's brow. No, now was not the time for that. At nine o'clock, after House, he could feel sorry for himself all he liked. But maybe even that would be put on hold tonight, if the Dark One lived up to expectations. Swizzie-poo smirked and reclined against the back of the tub luxuriously.

"The Dark One will rend all my enemies asunder. Even those pesky Sugar Rushers. Oh, the mirth I will feel upon seeing their blood-spattered bodies, crushed by the wrath of the Dark One!" Swizzie-poo said.

 _"BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAA!"_ Candlekins shouted from outside the room.

"CANDLEKINS!" Swizzie-poo yelled.

 _"Whaaaaaat?"_ Candlekins asked.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT BATHTIME?" Swizzie-poo asked.

 _"It's... um... wait a minute... on the tip of my tummy..."_ Candlekins started to reply.

"BATHTIME IS MY PRIVATE TIME TO BE ALONE WITH MY DARK BROODING EVIL THOUGHTS!" Swizzie-poo yelled.

 _"Oh, right! HAHAHAA, sorry about that! I got bored looking for the crayons, and then there was this hamster, and he told me that you had a dream of a night in the deepest love!"_ Candlekins said.

"Loving Overlady of the Probus! What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?" Swizzie-poo asked dramatically, pulling off his mask and glaring furiously at his comrade.

Candlekins grinned and burst into song.

"I would fly you to the moon and back, if you'll be... if you'll BEEE MY BAABYYYYY!" Candlekins replied.

"I DON'T LISTEN TO SAVAGE GARDEN!" Swizzie-poo yelled.

"WHEEE!" Candlekins shouted.

"GO AWAY! YOU'RE A CREEP! I WAS HAVING A GOOD TIME UNTIL YOU SHOWED UP, CANDLEKINS! UUUUGH! GO HAVE SOME COFFEE! WITH CREAM! OR SOMETHING!" Swizzie-poo yelled angrily.

Candlekins sulked out of the room, turning back just before leaving and glaring at her comrade with a pouty face.

"What?" Swizzie-poo asked.

"YOUR INCENSE STINKS AND YOU LISTEN TO STUPID MUSIC!" Candlekins replied.

She slammed the door and ran off to the closet that had been designated her room. Or she would have, rather, had she not tripped into the precise trap door that Crumbelina, Adorabeezle, and Minty had fallen down earlier, tumbling all the way down into the basement with a shriek.

* * *

"Finally! I see a stairwell ahead. We're almost out of this logic-defying hellhole." Adorabeezle said, sounding more pleasant than she had all the time they had spent in the world.

"But what about the Red Basin? We'll need it to get past that locked door." Minty asked as the three of them rushed towards the stairs.

"At this rate, I think a try of your strength on the stupid thing will be entirely worth the effort." Crumbelina replied.

"Or, you know, I could just freeze ice into the shape of the indentation." Adorabeezle added.

Just as the trio mounted the stairs and made their way up to open the door at the top, the basement echoed with the terrifying sound of a woman's scream and a steel slab slid across the door to block their exit.

"Now what?" Minty asked.

"It couldn't possibly be some kind of horrifying monster appearing from the shadows to seal our doom in an attempt to protect it's Seme master, could it?" Crumbelina asked.

"Crumbs, remember that discussion we had about not saying really ironic things like that because they always end up coming true?" Adorabeezle asked.

Sure enough, from the shadows of a doorway at the far end of the corridor, a tall, dark, and shadowy figure was very carefully extricating itself from the door frame. It drug a long razor-sharp rusted cleaver behind it, still more than capable of lopping the heads off any unsuspecting passers-by in need of punishment. Silently, the shadow stepped out of the doorway and into the light. It was in the shape of a pale man in a stained toga, the Probus symbol standing proudly on his chest. His hands and feet were covered in what appeared to be blood-red nail polish, but was also actually magic marker. And upon his head, concealing his face and weighing him down as though in punishment, was a tremendous red-stained metal bucket.

"Oh, look. A Red Basin." Crumbelina said casually.

Bucket Head was silent as he wobbled on his feet, slowly heading in the direction of three girls with murder in his eyes. Unfortunately, whoever designed a monster with a gigantic bucket on it's head did not put much thought into how the monster would be able to walk, much less hunt down and murder the guilty. The creature took two steps forward, tripped on a piece of rubble, and fell face-first into a pool of tepid basement water. The three Sugar Rushers watched him struggling to stand up for a moment and then glanced at each other.

"Oh, this is just sad. Even Tengiroth lasted at least a minute or two." Crumbelina said.

"Is this supposed to be our terrifying challenge for this world?" Adorabeezle asked.

"Maybe we ought to, I don't know, help him up?" Minty asked uneasily.

"Why don't we just spare him the embarrassment, take the bucket off his head, and get out of here without another word or even mentioning the incident. Is that alright with you girls?" Crumbelina asked.

"Sounds fine to me." Adorabeezle replied.

The three of them made their way carefully down the stairs and slowly approached the struggling Bucket Head on the ground. Crumbelina slowly reached down and plucked the bucket off of the monster's shoulders. As the bucket came away, light fell on the face and it revealed something horrible beyond all reason.


	20. Swizzie-poo

**Chapter 20: Swizzie-poo**

Up in the Seme's loft, Swizzie-poo was ten seconds away from a murderous rampage. He stood where he was, holding an empty cardboard carton marked with a huge black skull and crossbones bumper sticker. The seal had been broken and every last fishy cracker had been devoured. The Seme crushed the carton underfoot, clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white, and screamed in utter rage.

"THAT IDIOT ATE THE DARK ONE!" Swizzie-poo shrieked.

* * *

"OWIEEE! I'VE BEEN STUCK IN THIS THING FOR AN HOOUUUUR!" Candlekins whined, rolling back and forth in the puddle and immensely glad to finally be free of the bucket.

"We have had ridiculous cliffhangers before, but this? This was the stupidest, least-compelling, and most idiotic cliffhanger I've ever seen." Adorabeezle said in a very dark sort of voice.

"I hate it when that happens! I come down in the basement, lookin' for a good time, go diggin' in a closet, I got me a bucket on my head, went lookin' for me cleaver, and got me a rusty hatchet in the eyeball, y'know what I mean? WOOHOOOO! LLAMA-FACE!" Candlekins snapped, sitting up and rubbing her head.

"Honestly, I think we're glad to have found you, Candlekins. We'll have to deal with you sooner or later, and there's no time like the present, is there?" Crumbelina asked.

Candlekins's eyes widened, and she crawled backwards and away from the trio staring at her with malice and ill-intentions.

"Hey now, we don't gotta end it all violently! All we are saying is give peas a chance!" Candlekins said.

"I apologize, Seme, but you were never meant to exist. You are only a piece of an incomplete whole. We must restore you back into Candlehead's body where you belong." Minty said, breaking the news as gentle a tone as was probably possible.

Candlekins did a clumsy backflip, leaping to her feet and holding the cleaver up over her head.

"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, BEEFCAKE! FOR THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE" Candlekins screeched.

"You got that right." Adorabezle muttered.

Candlekins burst into song, and the cleaver was engulfed in an evil light as it began to change shape.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE WE ARE! BOOORN TO BE QUEENS, WE'RE THE PRINCESSES OF THE UNIVEEEEERSE! PREPARE YOURSELVES! Candlekins's Super Seme Ultra Double Dynamite Loopy-Doo Luau Attack!" Candlekins yelled.

Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle braced themselves as Candlekins seemed to be preparing for an immensely powerful attack, with all sorts of fancy dance moves, dramatic sweeps of the hand, and the occasional explosion of sparkles. The cleaver continued to twist and bend and change shape before her, until she finally snatched it out of the air.

"Oh, we're GOIN'! TO A HOOKY-LAU! Hooky-hooky-hooky-hooky hooky-lau! Hooky-lau-lau-lau!" Candlekins shouted, strumming out a tune on her brand new ukulele.

"This is impossible. It's like killing a caffeinated improv comic." Adorabeezle muttered.

"Hey, do you guys have any fishy crackers?" Candlekins asked quite suddenly.

There was a long pause.

"As a matter of fact, we do." Crumbelina replied.

She reached into her jacket and pulled out the Nalgene bottle, shaking it up to the light to show off the glistening crackers inside. Candlekins's jaw dropped and her tongue fell out the side, drooling profusely.

"OH EM GEE. THOSE ARE MY FAVORITES!" Candlekins squealed.

"Would you like some?" Crumbelina asked, eyeing Adorabeezle and Minty in a terribly obvious tone.

"YES, YES, YES, PLZ, PLZ, PLZ!" Candlekins replied, hopping up and down excitedly.

"Let us pour them in a bowl for you." Minty said.

She pulled out the Tupperware and very carefully opened the lid, wary not to let any of the four matrixes inside drift out and into the open. Adorabeezle took a handful of crackers from Crumbelina and sprinkled them liberally within the container.

"HA! You three think I am so stupid, don't you? That trick is so OBVIOUS! You think I am so stupid? I know I'm too big to fit in that little Tupperware dish there!" Candlekins asked.

"So you are." Crumbelina replied.

"You think you're so smart! HAHAHA! Well, I have FOOLED YOU! I will have my fishy crackers AND I will not fall for your stupid trick! Watch THIS!" Candlekins said triumphantly.

Pulling a dramatic ballerina pirouette into the air, Candlekins exploded in a burst of light, and all that was left of her was a floating wispy matrix. It jumped and wiggled excitedly, and then zipped immediately into the Tupperware to partake in the delicious Goldfish. It took Candlekins's matrix approximately ten seconds to somehow figure out that it now had no mouth and was no longer capable of eating fishy crackers, but that was far after Minty sealed the Tupperware lid, trapping the matrixes inside until the time they could be returned to their proper owners.

"Really now, that was pathetic." Adorabeezle said.

Crumbelina chuckled, shaking her head.

"I certainly hope that Swizzle's Seme will put up a little more of a fight than that. Speaking of which, we've got our Red Basin. Let's get up to his loft and show him that we mean business, shall we?" Crumbelina asked.

Minty smirked.

"Let's. Pass the Goldfish, Crumbs." Minty replied.

"They are delicious, aren't they?" Crumbelina asked.

"Yes. And so wholesome. Mothers can rest easy with Goldfish. Much better than that disgusting sugary what's-it-called." Adorabeezle replied.

Crumbelina tucked the Red Basin under her arm as the three of them made their way to the door.

"You know, Adorabeezle, for a moment there, I was almost sure the Bucket Head would be some kind of evil sentient cake." Crumbelina said.

"That was uncalled for." Adorabeezle said.

* * *

One trek up the stairs and satisfying unlocking of the chamber door later, Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle could faintly detect the sound of dramatic melancholy music blasting through the door to Swizzie-poo's chamber straight ahead of them.

 _I WANNA STAND WITH YOU ON A MOUNTAIN! I WANNA BATHE WITH YOU IN THE SEEEEA!_

"He listens to Savage Garden?" Minty asked, holding back a bit of laughter.

"I think it's high time we put him out of his misery, girls. On the count of three?" Crumbelina asked.

"One." Adorabeezle replied.

"Two." Minty added.

"And three!" Crumbelina said.

And with that, the three of them kicked in the double doors.

"Swizzle! We've come to take you home!" Minty called out.

There was the sudden scratch of a CD, and a noise that sounded rather like a Seme throwing his stereo into a bathtub with an electrical sizzle and a small explosion.

"WHAT HAVE I SAID ABOUT KNOCKING ON MY DOOR?" a voice asked angrily.

The trio watched as Swizzie-poo emerged from behind the bathtub, and they caught their first glimpse of him. He still looked quite a bit like his usual self... if his usual self spent six hours in the bathroom with a black eyeliner pencil and pale makeup. His hair was stringy, unwashed, and combed into his face, and he wore a dramatic Hot Topic ensemble of a pair of pants with ten suspenders and six sets of chains hanging off them in every direction, topped off with a corset.

"Nobody EVER understands me! All the rest of the Semes made FUN of me, and called me a CHILD, and said I couldn't DO anything, but now I'm one of the only ones left! They all PAID for misunderstanding me, and YOU don't understand me either!" Swizzie-poo shouted.

"You're probably correct in that assumption. But regardless, the time has come for us to destroy you and take you with us. My good friend Swizzle is missing his matrix." Minty said.

"Puh! Like I CARE? Hasn't anyone ever asked me what I thought about it? If I WANT to go back to him? What if I LIKE having a life of my own and ruling the world and brooding six hours a day? WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY CARE WHAT I THINK?" Swizzie-poo asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's probably the fact that you're a being comprised of a missing matrix." Crumbelina replied quite honestly.

Swizzie-poo narrowed his eyes, and an evil red glow shined from them in the dim light of the room.

"Well then, if that's the way it is, I'll just have to teach you all a lesson!" Swizzie-poo sneered.

With a mighty explosion of darkness and a blast of emo music, Swizzie-poo leaped off the floor and was soon floating in midair, his hair sticking straight up behind him and waves of some evil power swirling beneath him on the floor. The force of the explosion knocked the bathtub, the end table, and all the furniture in the room over to the side. The Sugar Rushers braced themselves on the slick stone tile and prepared for what would no doubt be an epic battle.

"What are you all fighting me for? You all have so much to feel sorry for yourselves about!" Swizzie-poo asked in a yell over the roar of evil, pointing his hands downward at the floor and grasping as though reaching for some kind of invisible strings.

"The only reason I feel sorry for myself is that I have to put up with idiots like you!" Crumbelina replied sharply.

"Oh, really?" Swizzie-poo asked.

He tightened his hand around something and then jerked upwards. A dark shadow rose from the floor, as though he were controlling it like a puppet. Slowly, the shadow took shape and gained a human form.

"EVERYBODY CALLS THEM CURLS! But they're not CURLS. They're BUNS. Do you know what you have to DO to your hair to get c-c-c-CURLS! AAAAGGGGGH!" an immensely scrawny, whiny, and basically grotesque version of Crumbelina screeched the moment it had been fully brought into existence.

"What in the name of..." Crumbelina started to ask, stepping back away from the emo replica of herself.

"EVERYBODY MAKES FUN OF MY BUNS, BUT THEY'RE GENEEETIIIIC! MY MEEMAW WAS A SWARTHY WOMAN WITH BIG BUNS AND MY POOPAW HAD THEM TOOOOOOOO!" the Crumbelina Shadow wibbled, clasping her hands over her eyes and sobbing heartily.

Taking extreme offense at that, Crumbelina snarled and lunged forward to destroy the deplorable thing, but she passed straight through the Shadow and only served to intensify it's whining.

"AND NOW YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL ME! WAAAAAAAH!" the Crumbelina Shadow sobbed.

Swizzie-poo howled with laughter and clasped at two more invisible strings, drawing up two more shadows that quickly manifested themselves into the forms of the other two Sugar Rushers before him.

"EVERYBODY THINKS I'M STUPID BECAUSE I'M MUSCULAAAAR! NOBODY UNDERSTAAAANDS ME! I'M JUST A BIG LUNK OF MUSCLLLLLLE! WAAAAAH!" the Minty Shadow wailed, curled up in a fetal position.

"Oh, honestly." Minty muttered.

Her attempts to destroy the Shadow also proved futile. Meanwhile, Adorabeezle's Shadow was having quite an episode of her own.

"NOBODY UNDERSTANDS WHY IT SCARES ME! IT-IT-IT'S SOFT AND SQUISHY AND SWEET AND CREAMY A-A-AND AAGGGGH! I JUST... I HATE... HATE... HATE... HAAAAAAATE CAKE!" the Adorabeezle Shadow wailed.

Adorabeezle sighed heavily and buried her face in her hands. Meanwhile, Swizzie-poo was rather enjoying his little puppet show, waving his hands to orchestrate the movement of the shadows.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Don't you SEE? EVERYBODY has something to whine about! EVERYBODY can be like me, LIVING in the darkness! MOPING! SOBBING! ANGSTING! EVERYONE WILL FEEL SORRY FOR THEMSELVES! When I am the ONLY member left of the Semes, ALL of Fandom Heights will bow to my angsty will! They will ALL look as these Shadows do... and that CERTAINLY includes you, you pesky pests!" Swizzie-poo shouted.

"I don't think so." Adorabeezle growled, glaring at the Seme.

"And just HOW do you think you can stop me?" Swizzie-poo asked, laughing hysterically and fully caught up in his evil moment.

"Like this." Minty replied casually.

Swizzie-poo looked up suddenly, just in time to see Minty transform into her Sakura form, shift into the form of a baseball launcher, and launch a baseball through the air, spinning end over end directly in his direction. The Seme was too late to dodge the ball. It struck him, and he flew backwards and slammed into the wall. The darkness in the room and the Shadows vanished. Crumbelina sighed in relief.

"Thank you, Minty." Crumbelina said, the corner of her lip still twitching in fury at her Shadow depiction.

"You're welcome." Minty said, transforming back into her normal form and strolling towards Swizzie-poo with her arms crossed.

"OWWWWW! MY BROKEN SOUL! Y-Y-Y-YOU HURT ME! HOW COULD YOU..." Swizzie-poo started to ask angrily.

Adorabeezle groaned.

"Oh, stop it. You don't have any internal organs, you little twerp. That shouldn't have hurt you at all." Adorabeezle snapped.

Swizzie-poo's eyes watered and he buried his face in his hands.

"NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME! NOBODY! WAAAAAAAAH!" Swizzie-poo yelled.

"Now listen here, you twit. Angst is all well and good in moderation, but let us remind you of one very simple and important fact. There is honestly a little threshold to the possible amount of whiny angst you can exude at any given time." Minty said.

"YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO TELL ME THAT! YOU'RE OPPRESSING ME!" Swizzie-poo yelled, kicking his feet wildly.

Crumbelina placed a hand on her forehead as though she was developing a headache.

"If you really feel the need to exercise your pubescent turmoil through the art of overwhelmingly suicidal, depressing, wrist-cutting angsty prose, why don't you turn your hand to something a little more suited to it? Silent Hill, perhaps?" Crumbelina asked.

There was a short pause.

"What's Silent Hill?" Swizzie-poo asked, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve.

There was a long pause. All three of the Sugar Rushers opened their mouths as though to say something, but then closed them. Then opened them. Then closed them again.

"Have you been in your own basement?" Minty asked in disbelief.

Swizzie-poo's eyes widened in shock.

"I have a basement?" Swizzie-poo asked.

"Oh, enough. Hold still and let's get it over with." Crumbelina replied.

"WAIT! I AM ALLOWED A DRAMATIC DEATH SCENE!" Swizzie-poo shouted.

"Make it quick." Adorabeezle snapped.

"LOOOONG AGO! LIKE THE HEARSE YOU DIED TO GET IN A..." Swizzie-poo started to yell, suddenly bursting into song.

"NONE OF THAT!" Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle yelled in unison.

Swizzie-poo huffed.

"Oh, fine." Swizzie-poo said.

With that, Crumbelina abruptly hardened him into a cookie statue and broke him apart. Swizzie-poo exploded into blue mist and the usual glowing orb. Minty gently coaxed it in with the other five, and there was a tense moment of silence, punctuated by three large sighs.

"That little dope listened to Savage Garden." Adorabeezle said, grinning slightly.

Minty gently shook the Tupperware, watching the matrixes swirling about inside.

"In that case, let's just presume to have done him a favor." Minty said.

* * *

"I hope no one has failed to realize that there are only two racers still missing in action." Minty said a few hours later, as she, Crumbelina, and Adorabeezle returned to the S.R. Plight and fled Vacillation Falls as fast as their engines could take them.

They were now seated in the ship's combination cockpit and lounge, partaking in a fresh batch of Goldfish crackers.

"Yes. Vanellope and Candi." Adorabeezle said, carefully adding to her notes of the journey from recorded observations on the guidebook's computer.

Crumbelina gazed out the front transparencies of the ship, her voice grave despite the successful outlook of the mission so far.

"I have a feeling that this is no ordinary world we're coming up on. No doubt, the Semes of those two will not be the same sort we are used to, either. We must be prepared for anything." Crumbelina said.

"Aren't we always?" Minty asked optimistically.

Crumbelina smirked slightly, her eyes still focused somewhere distant out in the vast reaches of space.

"Finally, we will see exactly who this Grandmaster Fanboy is, and what his wicked plan has to do with us. It will no doubt be very... interesting." Crumbelina replied.

Adorabeezle rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, for the most part, this entire journey has been a giant joke. Ruined cliffhangers, pathetic creatures to fight... certain pastries aside, I'm not nervous in the least." Adorabeezle said.

"We must have confidence, after all." Minty said.

"But be careful not to get too cocky, girls." Crumbelina said.

She crossed her arms and focused her attention on a bleeping dot just ahead of them on the radar. A new world, and an exceptionally large one, for that matter.

"After all, who are we to know what lurks in this place?" Crumbelina asked.

Adorabeezle shrugged.

"Probably something exceptionally stupid." Adorabeezle replied.


	21. The Final World

**Chapter 21: The Final World**

 _"Location: Fandom Heights, October 18th 2110"_

Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle disembarked from the S.R. Plight on the surface of the final world, got their bearings, and set off to follow the unmistakable signals that pointed them to one Seme and one Sugar Rusher in a distant corner of the world.

"We have disembarked from the S.R. Plight. I've gotten our bearings. Let's set off to follow these two signals. They're unmistakable. One is a Seme and one is still a Sugar Rusher, both off in a distant corner of the world." Minty said.

"Let's just get this over with already. I fear what may happen if the three of us spend any more time in this hellhole Fandom Universe than is necessary." Adorabeezle said.

"What does the guidebook say about this world, Minty?" Crumbelina asked.

"Nothing yet. We've got the two signals coming up on the radar, but other than that, it hasn't made a peep." Minty replied.

Crumbelina glanced up at the sky, which was pitch black as midnight and strangely without even a single star to poke light through the darkness.

"Well, we do have our observations. The wind is cold as far as I can detect it, as though this world is eternally dark. There doesn't seem to be any kind of sun." Crumbelina said.

"And the earth is echoing the footsteps of millions of people not too far from here. Some kind of city, I'd guess." Minty said.

"A city entombed in eternal darkness." Adorabeezle added.

"The shipboard computer did show this world to be massive in comparison to the others we've visited. We've got to stay on our guard at all times and be prepared for anything. We are far too late in the game to lose one of us to the Probus now." Crumbelina said.

"Even so, I suggest we move quickly. I have the guidebook trying to figure out exactly what the residents of the world are. There is no other way for us to find out but to get closer." Minty said.

* * *

An hour or so later, the three Sugar Rushers arrived at the outskirts of an absolutely massive city perched in the valley up against silver mountains that rose high into the black sky. The trio might have described the metropolis before them as some sort of a pseudo-Las Vegas. The buildings gleamed and sparkled, glowing with neon lights in every color of the rainbow. Tremendous flashing signs advertised normal commodities. Restaurants, bars, dance halls, a bowling alley, and what appeared to be several casinos. The city appeared to stretch endlessly off into the distance along the mountains, residential areas and well-lit entertainment districts reaching all the way past the foothills and right up to where the three were walking.

"What... familiar scenery." Adorabeezle said.

"Let's go through the checklist. Dark skies?" Crumbelina asked, one eyebrow raised high over the other as she examined their surroundings quizzically.

"Check." Minty replied.

"Foreboding overly complicated architecture and/or some kind of ruins?" Crumbelina asked.

"Indeed." Adorabeezle replied.

"Epic-sounding technopop and/or metal music in the background?" Crumbelina asked.

"Yep." Minty replied.

"Cryptic clues and references to the end of things, and/or excessively pretentious area names?" Crumbelina asked.

Adorabeezle read from a convenient nearby sign.

"We have stepped into the Haven of Wasted Epiphanies. Up ahead is the Village of Twisted Thoughts and the Subdivision of Broken Endings. Triple check." Adorabeezle replied.

"Yes, I thought so. This is a Final World if ever I saw one." Crumbelina said.

"In any case, there's still no signal letting us know the name or attributes of this world. We'd better figure out what the catch is before we go running off into a disastrous situation, or find ourselves stuck in the middle of one." Minty said.

She gestured to a small chalet-shaped building off to one side of the road leading into the vast city below.

"That building there appears to be a tourist information center." Minty said.

Crumbelina pointed a short distance away from the chalet that Minty had mentioned.

"And I think I see an observation tower just ahead. I'll try to get a better look at the city. Minty, why don't you go check in that tourist center?" Crumbelina asked.

"Certainly. Everyone meet back here. And signal if something bad happens, yes?" Minty asked.

"Indeed." Adorabeezle replied.

She turned to go with Minty. Crumbelina grasped her friend by her hood and pointed to a nearby shed.

"Hey, Adorabeezle, there's a little shack across from the observation tower. Do you see it there in that alley?" Crumbelina asked.

Adorabeezle blinked.

"You mean those run-down, desolate, crumbling ruins of obvious disaster and peril that perhaps were a shed in life?" Adorabeezle asked.

"Yes, that one. Go check in there." Crumbelina replied.

"I am most certainly not going in there!" Adorabeezle said.

Crumbelina looked annoyed.

"Oh? And why not?" Crumbelina asked.

"Because it's a death trap?" Adorabeezle asked.

"It is not a death trap, Beezle. What makes you think it's a death trap?" Crumbelina asked.

"I can quite clearly see the marks of an explosion on the outside of that shed. There are probably ten thousand rusty nails sticking out in every corner, absolutely crawling with tetanus." Adorabeezle replied.

"We're arcade characters from a racing game, Adorabeezle. We can't get tetanus." Crumbelina said.

"We can be impaled on a length of sharpened wood splinters, or torn limb-from-limb by horrifying Probus monsters." Adorabeezle said.

"I happen to know for a fact you could easily dispatch absolutely any sort of monster that could ever attack you." Crumbelina said confidently.

"I absolutely refuse on grounds of favoritism! Minty get's to search a big, well-lit tourist center. You get an observation tower out in the open. I have to go into a darkened alley and bust my way into crumbling ruins that are ninety-nine percent likely to be booby trapped, haunted, or otherwise absolutely deadly!" Adorabeezle snapped.

Crumbelina sighed and shook her head, motioning for Minty to follow her towards their respective destinations.

"We'll meet you back out here, Adorabeezle." Crumbelina said.

* * *

The tourist center seemed a little run-down and neglected, Minty noted as she stepped into the lobby. The furniture and carpets were dusty and looked like they hadn't been touched in ages. The floor creaked beneath her and the lights were dimmed, some of the bulbs bare in the fixtures, and some broken or burnt out. Cardboard racks holding colorful, if not a bit faded, pamphlets sat at an empty counter.

Minty thumbed through the pamphlets, all advertising bowling alleys, movie theaters, video arcades, and other entertainment centers. She frowned and placed them back in their proper racks. Nothing of use.

A cheerful sign stating "TOURIST INFO" was nailed up above the door frame leading into an adjacent room, the wall flickering like a fire was burning somewhere within it. Quietly listening for any signs of life, Minty approached the door frame and tried to peer around the corner. Somebody coughed, with the sound being muffled. It was odd, Minty thought, that whoever owned the establishment would not be out in the lobby at the counter where he or she belonged. Rounding the corner, the girl caught sight of a long haired blonde figure kneeling down and stoking a roaring fireplace at the far end of the room. It looked to be some kind of small dining room, or even a café, as the order counter at the north end of the room seemed to suggest. It was as run-down and filthy as the rest of the building, except for a gleaming and perfectly polished mirror on a vanity placed oddly in the corner.

"Excuse me?" Minty asked quietly, addressing the figure before the fireplace.

It was impossible to tell if it was male or female from the back, as a wavy feet of cornsilk blond hair fluttered behind their skinny body like a majestic cape of some sort. The figure coughed again into their hand, tossing another log onto the fire.

"Excuse me? Sir? Ma'am? I regret barging in here when you are apparently closed, but I'm in need of some information." Minty asked, stepping out into the room.

The figure slowly stood up, but did not turn around, simply cocking their head at Minty's words but not replying. The Apple Toffee themed girl stood there awkwardly for a few moments, before eventually deciding that the setup of the situation could only lead to some kind of horrible revelation or even a trap. The decrepit state of the building, the eerie coughing, the shadowed figure, the silence... Minty had seen plenty of horror movies, and most of them started out exactly like this.

"Alright, I'm sorry to have bothered you." Minty said.

"Your face." the figure said in a male voice, croaky and hoarse as if it had suffered from disuse or perhaps overuse, such as from high-pitched shrieking.

"Pardon?" Minty asked.

"It's so... hard. H-Hard and rough. Let me... SOFTEN IT!" the figure replied, reaching out a thin and nearly skeletal hand for an iron hammer placed on the hearth.

Minty took an instinctive step back just in time. With a horrible screech of fury, the figure lunged at her, taking a swing with the hammer that, while not fatal, would have seriously hurt. She dodged another strike and ended up backing into the wall behind her. The assailant lifted himself from the floor and glanced up at Minty with wide, terrible, sparkling, and unnaturally large eyes. And although he was male, his features were decisively feminine. Wispy, pale, shriveled, and nearly dead-looking, his hair quite easily the lushest and healthiest feature. And tattooed on his bare midriff was the symbol of the Probus.

"Be mine, Shnookypants." the Probus whispered, raising the hammer and flinging himself at the girl.

* * *

"The wind here is odd. It almost sounds like Minty screaming in horror." Crumbelina muttered as she approached the observation tower.

It also struck the girl how otherwise silent the wind there was. Despite the fact it was the outskirts of a city, there were no sounds. No vrooming of vivacious vehicles, no vice-ridden villains or their various victims, no victorious vibrations of voices. Not even a vendetta. All she could hear was the occasional clap of thunder from the valley below, storm clouds having gathered around an exceptionally dark tower. She might have called it the darkest one she had ever seen.

Even back in Sugar Rush, after the arcade was closed and it was quiet in the games, you could hear things happening at basically any time of day. There was always some kind of activity going on. But here, it was almost as if the buildings and streets down below were merely for show, like elaborate cardboard cutouts only there to distract travelers from the heart of things, which was obviously the extremely dark tower.

The observation tower was built of steel and neon, like the rest of the buildings in the city, and stood on the edge of the long cliff that led down into the valley and the city proper. Crumbelina stood at it's base for a few minutes, keeping an eye out for any kind of suspicious activity or enemies on guard. When everything remained as eerie and silent as it had been so far, Crumbelina opened a portal with her portal key to the top of the tower to look around. The wind was colder up there, carrying no sound besides the dramatic techno music. Firmly bolted to the tower's top was a set of binoculars, the sort you drop a coin into for about two minutes of blurry sightseeing through fingerprinted lenses with small children screaming in your ear that they wanted to see too.

Luckily for Crumbelina, there were no fingerprints or small children, and there was a suspiciously convenient stack of coins on the ground next to the base. She slipped one into the slot and gazed through the eyepieces at the city below. The dark tower off in the distance was certainly catching her eye. She safely bet that the Seme and the Sugar Rusher they were looking for were somewhere within that tower. She then glanced down at the streets, where the spindly effeminate-looking residents of the city trudged around with blank looks on their faces, fondling their scads of beautifully conditioned and styled hair and muttering things to themselves.

"Probus." Crumbelina muttered.

Minty had the guidebook. Once they regrouped, they could point the guidebook's computer down into the valley and hopefully pull up some information on the world's residents. She only had a little bit of experience in the sorts of things that Probus invariably ended up being based on, so she sat for a moment to try and ponder to herself exactly what "the deal" with this world's species could be.

"I SEE A KITTYYYYY" somebody shrieked from down below.

But it wasn't that far down below on the ground, but rather somewhere right behind where Crumbelina was perched on the tower. And before she could turn around, somebody, or rather something, rammed into the base of the observation tower, knocking out the bottom layer and sending the whole thing crashing to the ground. Crumbelina screamed.

* * *

Adorabeezle screamed.


	22. Citrusella's Troubles

**Chapter 22: Citrusella's Troubles**

 _"Location: Litwak's Arcade, The World Of Disney, October 18th 2110"_

Far across the reaches of space, back in Adorabeezle's lab in Sugar Rush, Rancis sat in front of his friend's supercomputer, carefully keeping an eye out for signals. That morning, there had been a message left that since Crumbelina, Minty, and Adorabeezle were heading into what had to be the final world of Fandom Heights, either Rancis or Citrusella HAD to stay at the computer at all times in case of a distress signal. If, by some miracle, the Probus forces suddenly became a thousand times more intimidating and if they managed to overwhelm the trio, it would be up to the two Sugar Rushers to send in reinforcements.

Only one person was necessary to mind the computer, so the two decided that the one not watching the computer would be in charge of babysitting the Ukes of the affected Sugar Rushers. That, obviously, made minding the computer look like the most fun job in the world. It came down to a rapid-fire Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament, which Rancis had won. But that was not to say that Citrusella had been handling the Ukes all by herself all day. In fact, her visits to the lab were becoming more and more frequent as the hours went on.

"Rancis, they're bored! They are INSISTING I let them style my hair!" Citrusella snapped during the first visit.

"So let them style your hair." Rancis said.

"I will not have their grimy little hands touching me! Do you know that Swizzle's Uke has a real problem with nose picking? I'm running out of ways to keep them busy!" Citrusella barked.

Rancis groaned and turned around to glare at her pointedly.

"What do you want me to do, Citrusella? I can't exactly come help you. I need to stay at this station. We're under orders, remember? And I don't know about you, but I don't wanna be at the receiving end of Adorabeezle's temper if we screw this up and she ends up coming back in one piece." Rancis asked.

Citrusella crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe.

"Remember last time? I didn't think it was possible for steel to shatter like that." Citrusella replied, shuddering from the memory.

Rancis sighed.

"So you see what I mean? Look, I dunno. Why don't you go put on a movie for them in her and Nougetsia's living room?" Rancis asked.

That had sounded like a good idea, so Citrusella disappeared for ten minutes or so.

"Rancis!" Citrusella shouted when she stepped into the doorframe again for her second visit.

"What? I'm still watching the computer." Rancis asked.

"They can't decide on a movie! It's seven-to-one, Moulin Rouge against Evil Dead 2." Citrusella replied.

"Then what's the problem? Sounds like a majority rule to me." Rancis asked.

"I'm the one! And I am NOT watching Moulin Rouge!" Citrusella replied.

"If you show them that movie, they'll be up all night and coming into your bedroom, asking to sleep in your bed with you." Rancis said.

"What makes you so sure?" Citrusella asked.

"I let them watch The Little Mermaid II yesterday." Rancis replied.

"The Little Mermaid II?" Citrusella asked in confusion

"Morgana frightened them." Rancis replied.

"Oh, for the love of... FINE!" Citrusella snapped.

The blue haired girl vanished again. The third time, Citrusella did not actually come to visit. Instead, Rancis was drawn away from his workstation by a cacophonous screeching sound, almost like something was being brutally tortured within an inch of it's life. Fearing the worst (such as Citrusella really hating the movie and taking it out on one of the hapless Ukes), Rancis rushed into the house to check on things... and found the Ukes absolutely enraptured with Ewan McGregor's singing voice.

"The hiiiiiiiiiiills are aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive! WITH THE SOUND OF MUUUUUUUUUUUUSIC!" the Ukes sang in an obnoxious unison.

"With soooongs they have suuuuuuuuuung..." Gloyd sung, taking a solo by rising from his seat and really belting it out.

"For a thousand YEAAAAAAAAAAAARS!" Vanellope and Taffyta shrieked.

Taffyta sat in the front row and looked ten seconds from ending her life with a quick electrical shock to the brain.

"What is going on up here? Stop that noise!" Rancis asked, sounding exceptionally put off and suddenly very paranoid that something was happening at the computer now that he had left.

"They won't watch the movie, unless they are allowed to sing." Citrusella replied furiously, a twitch developing in her left eye.

"Well, keep it down! I'm trying to stay on guard in there and you guys made me think somebody was being murdered up here!" Rancis said.

He returned to his guard station, grudgingly.

* * *

There was about half an hour of perfect silence after that. Rancis worked on a game of Solitaire on the computer, still glancing at the radar and turning up the radio to top volume every few minutes to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary.

But then the silence was ended by another explosion of noise from the direction of the living room. Five minutes of waiting brought no end to the sort of screaming, laughing, singing, and foot stomping noises that could only come from choreographed dance moves. Rancis appeared in the doorway of the room again, infuriated and yelling over the soundtrack.

"What is going on up here? I thought I told you to..." Rancis started to ask angrily.

"RANCIS, KEEP IT DOWN! I CAN'T HEAR!" Citrusella screamed viciously.

Tears were flowing freely down the Uke's cheeks, and careful examination could spot a moist line down Citrusella's face as well. They were all leaning forward in their seats, exceptionally concerned about whether or not Christian could convince Satine to fall in love with him through a medley of epic proportions. Rancis's jaw dropped.

"What the..." Rancis started to ask.

Citrusella gushed, clasping her hands together and giddily stomping her feet on the floor.

"Oh, he sang 'Your Song' to her and has the voice of an angel! She HAS to fall in love with him, she just HAS to!" Citrusella said happily.

Torvald sighed longingly, leaning back in her chair and more or less swooning.

"Oh, oh, I've seen this a thousand times! And it NEVER gets old!" Torvald said.

"Citrusella, what are you doing? Why are you crying over a stupid movie?" Rancis asked.

"It is not stupid! It is a magnificent embodiment of freedom, beauty, truth, and love! It's impossible to watch Moulin Rouge and feel no emotion!" Citrusella said vehemently, clenching her teeth in fury at him.

Rancis threw his hands up in the air in frustration, spinning on his heels.

"You know what? As long as you're keeping them out of trouble, it doesn't matter anyway! I'm going back to the computer. You just keep it down." Rancis said.

"Get out! They're about to kiss!" Citrusella shrilled, gesturing for him to leave.

Rancis stomped off down the hall, just as jubilant screams sounded from the theater.


End file.
